by Wes Gehring
One is also tempted to think that Stillwell hoped, even during the volatile early days of her marriage, that teaming up with this diamond-in-the-rough comic might coalesce into one of those survivor success stories that helped define the Great Depression, from a down-and-out boxer nicknamed “Cinderella Man” (James J. Braddock), to an underdog nag of a horse called Seabiscuit. I am also reminded of a similar take on the Depression-era book, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind (1936). Cultural historian Conrad Lane reminds us, “Mitchell always contended that survival was the major theme of the book … it is easy to see why survivors of the Great Depression found so much with which to identify.”42
This was the era of second-chance populism, a film genre forever associated with director Frank Capra and such comedy classics as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). And with Stillwell being the planning “big picture” person in the Skelton-Stillwell marriage, she was the one most likely to see the second-chance potential in Skelton’s comedy career. Besides, it offered the excitement of show business. Her best other job offer from a man was a conscientious uncle wanting her to assist him in his undertaking business. With hindsight, her return to Skelton seems quite predictable. Whether or not she sensed the amazing Depression success story they themselves were about to become, Stillwell’s 1930s correspondence documents the early furor: “Our manager has already signed the contracts [to appear on Rudy Vallee’s career-making radio program]—you can well imagine how excited we are.”43
Chapter 3 Notes
1. Frederick C. Othman, “Ex-Usherette Leads Skelton to Success,” New York World Telegram, August 14, 1941.
2. Wes Gehring, Charlie Chaplin: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983).
3. “Skelton Out of the Closet: Red Skelton’s Film Masterpiece Has Never Grossed a Dollar,” Baltimore Morning Sun, October 12, 1941.
4. Betsy Baytos, “Interview with Red Skelton,” Dance Collection Oral History, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, New York, New York, February 20, 1996, pp. 27–28.
5. Arthur Marx, Red Skelton (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979), 23.
6. Red Skelton, “I’ll Tell All” (part 2), Milwaukee Journal, December 9, 1941.
7. Ibid.
8. “Success Story,” CUE, September 20, 1941.
9. For example see, Marx’s Red Skelton or Wes Gehring, Seeing Red … The Skelton in Hollywood’s Closet: An Analytical Biography (Davenport, IA: Robin Vincent Publishing, 2001).
10. Red Skelton, “I’ll Tell All”; Edna Stillwell Skelton (as told to James Reid), “I Married a Screwball,” Silver Screen (June 1942).
11. John Branch, “60 Years and 1,000 Tales Since 14 Were Ejected,” New York Times, July 6, 2006.
12. Red Skelton, “I’ll Tell All.”
13. Sally Jefferson, “The Skelton in Hollywood’s Closet,” Photoplay (July 1942): 71.
14. Edna Stillwell Skelton, “I Married a Screwball,” 22.
15. David L. Smith, Hoosiers in Hollywood (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2006), 87.
16. Edna Stillwell Skelton, “I Married a Screwball,” 22.
17. Television Academy’s Salute to Red Skelton, Beverly Hills, California, October 21, 1998.
18. Hedda Hopper, “Yes, Red Skelton’s Always That Way,” Los Angeles Times, November 3, 1946.
19. William Eagle, “Out of Love into Business,” American Weekly, July 27, 1947, p. 9.
20. “Hollywood’s Newest Funny Man,” Vincennes Sun-Commercial, September 5, 1941.
21. “Capitol, Wash.,” Variety, March 10, 1937, p. 50.
22. Edna Stillwell Skelton, “I Married a Screwball,” 22.
23. Othman, “Ex-Usherette Leads Skelton to Success,” 2.
24. Red Skelton, “I’ll Tell All” (part 1), Milwaukee Journal, December 8, 1941.
25. Edna Stillwell Skelton, “I Married a Screwball,” 23.
26. “Red Skelton,” Current Biography 1947, Anna Roth, ed. (New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1948), 580.
27. Red Skelton, “I’ll Tell All” (part 3), Milwaukee Journal, December 10, 1941.
28. Ibid.
29. Red Skelton, “I’ll Tell All” (part 4), Milwaukee Journal, December 11, 1941.
30. Ibid.
31. Jefferson, “The Skelton in Hollywood’s Closet,” 39.
32. Edna Stillwell Skelton, “I Married a Screwball,” 61.
33. James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times (1933; reprint, New York: Bantam Books, 1947).
34. Manohla Dargis, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (and Staying)?,” New York Times, July 14, 2006.
35. Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 59–72.
36. Marx, Red Skelton, 204.
37. Jefferson, “Skelton in Hollywood’s Closet,” 70.
38. Edna and Red Skelton, letter to Inez and Clarence Stout, May 28, 1937, Clarence Stout Papers, Lewis Historical Library, Vincennes University, Vincennes, Indiana.
39. Ibid.
40. Skelton to Stouts (February 27, 1939).
41. Steve Allen, “Red Skelton,” in The Funny Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), 266.
42. Conrad Lane, “Famed Novel Doesn’t Deserve a Racist Epithet,” Muncie Star Press, July 16, 2006.
43. Skelton to Stouts (1937).
4
Early Star Status: Memorable 1937
“We open at Loew’s State Theatre in New York City. It’s the one and only big vaudeville house there, and … we have never played the big city before—we’re scared too but darn happy about it.”1
Edna Stillwell Skelton
The previous chapter closed with Red Skelton on the verge of major stardom, and some hypothetical thoughts on how much his comedy guru first wife, Edna Stillwell Skelton, might have anticipated this development. Of course, the flip side to such seer suggestions (which would help explain why she stayed in a challenging marriage), is an old axiom from the most unlikely of sources, “gonzo” writer Hunter Thompson. His New Journalism reporting, which made the writer a pivotal part of the story, was fond of the line, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”2 So maybe Stillwell simply felt she had bought the marriage “ticket” and now was on the metaphorical “ride.” Regardless, after Stillwell created the famous Skelton donut sketch, theirs was the proverbial overnight success. Although Skelton had served an apprenticeship in medicine shows and minstrels, and some brief less-documented stops in tent shows, on a riverboat, and in a circus, when he met Stillwell he was still in the lowly position of burlesque comic. And the early years of their marriage reflected the tenor of the Great Depression times—Skelton was a master of ceremonies for walkathons. Skelton’s performing dues had been paid.
Stillwell’s mid-1930s donut routine and other reality-based writing helped Skelton segue his skills into vaudeville, the next rung on the entertainment ladder. By 1937 Skelton received rave reviews throughout the country and parts of Canada. Indeed, the comedian’s first significant 1937 engagement in the United States (at the Capitol Theatre in Washington, D.C.) had the Variety reviewer praising a “Canadian lad” (Skelton), who “socked home enough heavy comedy in his emceeing to win solid front [praise] from critics and even the high school girls.”3 (The seminal donut sketch had been written for an extended 1936 engagement in Canada, and initially some stateside critics thought Skelton was Canadian.)
Word of mouth on Skelton coming into this key engagement was high, a fact noted by Washington Post critic Nelson B. Bell: “[Skelton] proves himself worthy of all the nice things that were said about him before his arrival in Washington. He is an elongated young man, endowed with tremendous versatility and that ingratiating sort of personality that makes everything he does seem perhaps better than it is.”4 Variety underlined, however, that the donut sketch was central to Skelton’s success: “without [the] doughnut bit, which wows ’em, Skelton might have been overshadowed [but] through no fault of his own.”5
The Capitol Theatre ads for the com
edian heralded “‘RED’ IS HERE! That NEW dynamic personality you’ve excitedly awaited: RED SKELTON, six feet two of entertaining dynamite.”6 Impressively, when the comedian lived up to all this hoopla and was held over for a second week, Stillwell was able to provide him with two more slice-of-life sketches. Continuing the “how to” magic of the donut routine, the new material comically explored how different people go to sleep and how late theater patrons try to find their seats in the dark. Variety’s follow-up review, while noting the “two [new] pantomimes are obviously hauled out of the reserve bag,” went on to praise them, even calling the sleep routine “hilarious.”7
Sounding more like a Skelton press agent than a reviewer, Bell heralded the comedian’s holdover week by revealing, “Skelton, who has scored so resounding a hit … seems to be going places.… RKO-Radio [studio] has a 90-day option of his services.”8 The RKO deal ultimately led to Skelton’s supporting role in a feature film released the following year, Having Wonderful Time (1938, where he reprised his donut sketch, as well as a routine on how various people navigate staircases). Stillwell’s observational material remained a cornerstone of Skelton’s repertoire for the remainder of his career. For example, in recently viewing a signature collection of Skelton’s later television series authorized by his estate, an undated episode from sometime in the 1950s had the comedian demonstrating how different people seat themselves at a soda fountain counter, which segued into a comic take on how customers add sugar to coffee and then into the various ways a straw is used/abused when eating ice cream.9
In 1937 Skelton followed his smash engagement at the Capitol with two equally successful Canadian bookings at Montreal’s Loew’s and Toronto’s Shea theaters. Once again, he could do no wrong. Variety’s Montreal coverage stated, “Skelton has some new gags and sketches about at level of former performances here but house [audience] will take anything from him.”10 The Toronto Daily Star said of Skelton’s opening at the Shea, “For the laugh spots on the bill the management has reached out and plucked … a fun favorite in these parts in the person of ‘Red’ Skelton, the clown prince.”11
The comedian’s Montreal booking also gave Skelton a chance to use the mimicking skills that had made him such a hit impersonating Al Jolson back in Clarence Stout’s minstrel shows. This time around Skelton shared the vaudeville stage with British actor/impressionist Owen McGiveney, whose act was comprised of quick-change dramatic episodes from Charles Dickens. A special audience favorite was his abridged Oliver Twist, where McGiveney played six different characters in a miniplay called “Bill Sykes.” In the more literary sensitive 1930s, this bit of high art in a normally low-art medium (vaudeville) went over very strongly. Fittingly, the Montreal Gazette had kudos for both Skelton and the Dickens aficionado: “McGiveney dominates the show this week and only the resourceful Red Skelton seems able to make himself remembered besides.”12 Where did the comedian’s mimicry skills come in? Variety’s review of the same engagement answers the question—Skelton’s close for the show, and the vaudeville bill in general, was a “clowning imitation of McGiveney’s act.”13
One should note that an added responsibility of a vaudeville master of ceremonies was not only to keep the program running smoothly but also make it seamless, dovetailing one act into another. Translation: Skelton often needed to play a quasi-second banana to every act on the bill, as well as performing his own sketches. Skelton’s gift for wearing all these hats also sometimes assisted an off night for individual performers. A Variety review noted that one night the crowd was not fully responding to McGiveney’s Dickens routine. But after some creative mimicry on Skelton’s part, the British actor was given an encore. Such showmanship skills further documents why Skelton was so popular with audiences and entertainers.
Skelton’s banner year continued through nonstop bookings in the East and Midwest in which he polished the latest Stillwell-authored sketches but wisely anchored the act to the donut routine. When Skelton performed at Milwaukee’s Riverside Theatre, a local critic summarized the situation in the following manner: “Red Skelton is back in town.… This year’s show is entirely new except for the doughnut dunking massacre, which he repeats only because the audience demands it.”14 Stillwell’s 1937 writing touch assumed a comically feminine slant in a Skelton sketch where he pantomimes a woman putting on makeup. The comedian so effectively inhabited the part that he performed variations of the bit for the rest of his career. The routine is best showcased in two later Skelton films, Bathing Beauty (1944) and The Fuller Brush Man (1948). But by then Stillwell had further embellished the sketch by having Skelton pretend to wiggle into an undersized girdle. (Appropriately, one of Skelton’s earliest entertainment parts, back in his Vincennes youth, was playing a señorita in a local YMCA circus production.15)
In a role that rivaled her writing activities, Stillwell also coached her husband from the wings—“he would rely on her hand signals, adjusting his jokes to the audience reaction.”16 Stillwell’s behind-the-curtain directing continued through Skelton’s 1940s radio days and into the early 1950s, even after their marriage had ended she continued to serve as his head writer/manager.
Just as Stillwell-authored observation pantomime approach was a constant through Skelton’s television series (1951 to 1971), there were several additional 1930s performance nuances that also would not change for the rest of Skelton’s career. Then and later, the comedian enjoyed laughing at his own material, a phenomenon generally frowned upon by other comedians. Thus, a 1937 critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer observed, “[Skelton] enjoyed his demonstration of ‘dunking’ doughnuts just as much as did the audience.”17 There are, however, several explanations/justifications for this response, beyond the comedian’s pat answer, “Why should I be the only one not getting the joke?” First, there was a greater preponderance of 1930s comedians who laughed at their own observations, starting with arguably the decade’s most beloved humorist, Will Rogers. Second, entertainer/comedy critic Steve Allen posited in the 1950s, “A great many comedians, especially those who have worked, as Red has, in vaudeville, employ the giggle device as a cover-up and a come-on. In a big theatre it sometimes takes a second or two for an audience to absorb a joke and respond to it. Lots of comedians fill that empty spot with some sort of nervous mannerism. George Burns and Ken Murray wiggle their cigars, Bob Hope pretends to be sailing right into the next sentence, although he rarely says more at such times than ‘I-uh’ or ‘but I really.’”18
Beyond Allen’s practical explanation of the “giggle device” as a bridging and/or pump-priming technique by the comedian, I would also argue for a more aesthetic answer. I draw this position from an unlikely source, a production memoir of director Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) by the film’s coscripter Frederic Raphael. The writer complained that this dominating/domineering director was “so guarded” that he substituted “grumbly little noises” for laughter. Why? Raphael’s explanation was, “Laughter is loss of control.”19 For me, Skelton’s “loss of control” laughter made audiences feel closer to him, like he was simply one of them. Though I do not think Skelton ever sat down and postulated this all out, I believe he intuitively recognized the logic in his laughter—a response as natural as the reality-based pantomimes penned by Stillwell.
Another constant in Skelton’s act was a propensity for old jokes. One of his many hobbies involved collecting joke books. And like many comedians, he maintained (by way of Stillwell) a joke file. As a fan of Mark Twain, Skelton probably enjoyed a certain quote from Twain’s time-tripping novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). At one point in the title character’s travel to the distant past, he must sit through the humorous speech of the court comic, Sir Dinadan. The Yankee amusingly observes: “I think I never heard so many old played-out jokes strung together in my life.… It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was born and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry gripes when I was a boy.… It abo
ut convinced me that there isn’t any such thing as a new joke possible.”20
Skelton’s remedy for resurrecting such “worm-eaten jokes” seemed to be a combination of high-octane enthusiasm and his post-joke “giggle device.” And throughout Skelton’s career, he made it work. For example, the Variety critic covering his July 1937 Capitol appearance noted, “[The] lad puts ’em across even if they’re corny by giving plenty.”21 When Skelton moved his act to New York City the following month, crowds and critics continued to find his old jokes Teflon-like: “Some of Skelton’s puns are ultra sour and many of his lines are ancient, but he’s generally a very funny buffoon who rates the big hand he gets.”22 (To put Skelton’s puns from the 1930s in perspective, the then very popular Marx Brothers often peppered their pictures with puns.)
Flash forward to Skelton’s first season (1951–52) on television. New York Herald Tribune critic John Crosby was still praising the comedian’s ability to sell an ancient joke: “‘Skelton can prattle along indefinitely, spitting out unrelated [old] jokes with an air of such vigorous humor that, I’m forced to admit, he carries a large part of the audience along with him by sheer determination. It’s a gift not to be taken lightly,’ I wrote once upon a time.… (If Mr. Skelton can repeat the jokes, I ought to be permitted to repeat the observations.)”23 Many years later, a television rerun of the comedian’s HBO special, Red Skelton’s Christmas Dinner (1981), produced this positive but familiar sounding Variety review: “Freddy the Freeloader … brings home a family message in a corny but good-natured style … Skelton’s sweet temperament and pure delight in his own antics make this a happy holiday entry.”24