Red Skelton

by Wes Gehring

  As a footnote to the high-powered enthusiasm with which Skelton sold old material, what critic Crosby likened to “sheer determination,” one could also add a propensity for self-deprecating humor. Though the comedian was doing this from the 1930s on, the best extant example dates from a 1962 episode of his television series. First, Skelton pitches a bad pun about not wanting to “give himself away,” noting: “I did that the other day. I jumped on the scales and got a weigh.” After a pause, while his “giggle device” helps generate audience laughter, he adds: “You don’t hear jokes like that any more … and aren’t we lucky?”25

  Should one credit, or blame, Stillwell for Skelton’s old joke tendencies, since she wrote the comedian’s sketches? A Stillwell letter written to an early Skelton mentor in 1937 suggests otherwise. Stillwell created the pantomime sketches but was “not so good on quips & [verbal] gags.… But it doesn’t matter ’cause Red’s a whiz on those.”26 Ironically, while Skelton effectively sold the old shtick throughout his long career, what he is most celebrated for today is the pantomime.

  Regardless, the young comedian never lost sight of the Depression-era dream he was living as a performer. Fittingly, the Hoosier humorist told an Indianapolis audience during his breakout year, “It’s a silly way to make a living [dunking donuts] but it’s better than working.”27 Yet, Skelton tried to improve himself. Just as he had enhanced his educational skills by traveling with a tutor, Skelton worked with other entertainers to polish his performing skills. Stillwell’s late 1930s correspondence documents that Skelton was working on both playing the piano and dancing, including getting suggestions from the great Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, creator of stair-tap routine.28 When Skelton and Robinson shared the bill at Chicago’s Palace Theatre in mid-1937, the dancer was still riding the huge critical and commercial successes of three 1935 films: The Little Colonel (with Shirley Temple), In Old Kentucky (with Will Rogers), and The Littlest Rebel (again with Temple). Robinson was always generous with his time and talent, and appreciated the fact that young Skelton was asking for help.

  If playing New York City’s Loew’s State Theatre was one of Skelton’s watershed events for seminal 1937 (as suggested by the Stillwell quote that opens this chapter), at least three other events that calendar year rivaled the booking in importance. First, and most obvious, he was a critical and commercial smash in New York. But this success went beyond excellent notices and solid box-office numbers. This triumph resulted in a rave review in the all-important “New Acts” portion of Variety, the entertainment industry bible. The review stated: “[Skelton] is a young comic whose chances appear exceptionally strong. He has an easy, affable manner of working, quickly ingratiates himself and is pretty well equipped with material.… He’s not going to have any trouble at all getting along in this or any other town, either on stage dates of this character, in picture houses or on nitery [nightclub] floors.”29

  Second, Skelton’s stockpiling of 1937 critical kudos resulted in an invitation to appear on a popular coast-to-coast radio program, Rudy Vallee Varieties. This would be Skelton’s first exposure to a national audience. Vallee had started his career as a popular singer, the first to be labeled a “crooner.” His signature song, initially performed with his trademark megaphone, was “The Vagabond Lover,” which doubled as the title of Vallee’s first feature film (1929). Vallee’s active singing career with his Connecticut Yankees orchestra and periodic screen roles enabled him to have a highly influential program on radio. The hook for the show, beyond Vallee himself, was a showcase for promising new performers. Radio historian John Dunning credits Vallee’s program with being the “most important show on the air in the early to mid-1930s, so influential that a young unknown talent could rightly consider a booking there the break of a lifetime.”30

  Vallee’s awareness of Skelton would not have been limited to the latter’s superlative Variety notices. Skelton’s active vaudeville stage schedule literally had Vallee and his orchestra frequently following the comedian into several 1937 bookings. The two performers even had a Canadian connection. Vallee was born in Vermont, attended the University of Maine, and had a soft spot for performing in Canada, and Skelton first came into his own with the donut routine while playing Montreal. Appropriately, a jubilant Stillwell wrote to Clarence and Inez Stout about the upcoming Vallee program: “Please would you listen in, and if you like it, drop us a line and let us know. This [booking] is definite, our manager has already signed the contracts—you can well imagine how excited we are—Don’t forget, please let us know.”31

  The Vallee opportunity would mean little if the comedian did not go over, however, like everything else Skelton did in 1937, he was not to be denied. His guest spot that August proved so popular that Vallee had the comedian back twice more that year. Stillwell’s letter to the Stouts might have tipped Skelton’s hand as to the material the comedian would use on Vallee’s program. That is, Skelton made his humor synonymous with Vincennes. A pleased critic for the hometown Vincennes Sun-Commercial proudly wrote, “From the beginning of the program Skelton cleverly wrapped his jokes around Vincennes.”32 Rating front-page coverage, the article was titled, “‘Red’ Skelton Tells of City in Radio Debut.”

  Vallee’s radio show, also known as the Fleischmann’s Hour (his sponsor), was tightly scripted, making this an odd fit for Skelton, a pantomimist with a proclivity for ad-libbing. The reason so many Vincennes references made the program was because Skelton strayed from the script. This did not win any points with the control-conscious Vallee, whose accidental dropping of the sacred script (or an exasperated tossing of copy no one was following) resulted in Skelton’s best off-the-cuff line, “Rudy’s ad-libs are scattered all over the floor.”33

  Skelton biographer Arthur Marx makes much of Vallee’s frustration in his profile of the comedian.34 But just as Skelton was playing to the program’s studio audience with his ad-libbing, it seems more logical that the veteran Vallee was doing the same with his demonstrative response to Skelton. Moreover, one could also argue that Skelton’s Hoosier humor was hardly a surprise to his radio host. After all, Vallee had also booked his favorite Indiana-born performer, Joe Cook, to appear on the same program with Skelton. One should quickly add here that Cook was not a newcomer looking for a break. Born in Evansville, Indiana, Cook logged time with a medicine show and was part of a minstrel act. Cook’s big break came in 1923 when he was featured in Earl Carroll’s Vanities, a popular variation of the Ziegfeld Follies. Cook’s versatility often had him billed as a “one-man vaudeville,” though comedy historian Henry Jenkins’s description of Cook as the “nut comic” is more telling.35 One might liken Cook’s signature Broadway stage production, Rain or Shine (1928–29), to a Marx Brothers-type show, with Cook’s character being a zany, fast-talking huckster along Groucho lines. Despite this “nut comic” moniker, Cook was such a beloved performer that another characterization of his persona, “contagious good-naturedness,” sounds positively Skelton like.36

  So what brought Cook to Vallee’s youth-orientated variety hour? The comedian was such a Broadway fixture that he became a regular guest on Vallee’s New York-based program in 1930. He stayed with Vallee until the mid-1930s, then becoming the headlining radio comic on first the Colgate House Party (1934–35), and later the Circus Night in Silvertown (1935). Cook also found time to become a regular guest on the Al Jolson: Shell Chateau Program during 1935 and 1936. The following season it became the Joe Cook: Shell Chateau. For the 1930s listening audience, the presence of this figure represented guaranteed comedy entertainment. I belabor the Cook-connection here, because he had a soft spot for fellow Hoosiers. Thus, his favored status with Vallee quite possibly had something to do with Skelton’s breakthrough radio booking.

  This hypothesis is given added credence by the nature of what transpired on Skelton’s first Vallee appearance. The two Hoosiers proceeded to kid each other’s Indiana hometown. Skelton comically called Cook’s Evansville a “suburb of Vincennes.” (Though both a
re located in southern Indiana, Vincennes is strictly a small town, while Evansville qualifies for city status.) The end result, as reported by another front-page Vincennes Sun-Commercial article, was a radio rating bonanza: “Red made a big hit with his wise-cracks and bantering comedy … A deluge of fan mail has brought him back to the program again.”37 While history has not recorded a breakdown of the return addresses on that devotee correspondence, it is safe to assume that the majority came from Indiana.

  Whether or not Vallee and/or Cook had consciously set out to create some sort of Hoosier hullabaloo with Skelton, they had succeeded. The Vincennes Sun-Commercial’s front-page headline for the return comedy bout between the two Indiana buffoons boldly stated: “Red Skelton to Pursue Feud with Joe Cook on Air Tonight.”38 In that age, radio feuds were big business. The year before Skelton and Cook went at it, radio comedy giants Jack Benny and Fred Allen had begun their famous feud. Although they were close friends in real life, Allen had initiated this entertainment battle royal over Benny’s mediocre violin skills, an instrument that was part of Benny’s persona. For instance, Allen noted, “When Jack Benny plays the violin, it sounds as if the strings are still back in the cat.”39

  Significantly, by 1937, after Allen and Benny had been lambasting each other from their separate shows, the two staged a much ballyhooed showdown on March 14. Benny guest starred on Allen’s program, with all nature of barbs being tossed. When Benny discussed his ad-lib skills, Allen cracked, “You couldn’t ad-lib a belch after a Hungarian dinner.” Benny answered, “You wouldn’t dare say that if my writers were here.”40 The two comics continued their friendly feud until Allen’s 1956 death.

  Shortly after the memorable March confrontation of Benny and Allen, another popular comic feud developed on Edgar Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy Program. Also known as The Chase and Sanborn Hour, the program starred ventriloquist Bergen and his smart aleck dummy/youngster, Charlie McCarthy. The feud, possibly inspired by the then current Benny-Allen rating bonanza, involved the comic clash of McCarthy and Bergen’s regular guest star, W. C. Fields. (Fields’ legendary antiheroic persona was tied to a love of alcohol, footnoted by a red, bulbous nose, and a hatred of children.) The Fields-McCarthy verbal exchanges are celebrated today as classic examples of American radio comedy during its golden age. Especially funny lines included Fields describing McCarthy as a “woodchigger’s snack bar” and a “woodpecker’s pin-up” or McCarthy’s “Is it true, Mr. Fields, that when you stood on the corner of Hollywood and Vine forty-three cars waited for your nose to change to green?”41

  Obviously, with both these radio feuds taking off in early-to-mid 1937, the Skelton-Cook confrontation on Vallee’s show must have seemed a natural for the late summer and autumn of that same year. The Skelton-Cook follow-up for Vallee was a hit, too. Consequently, Skelton was invited back for a third appearance. This successful radio exposure probably helped make it possible for Skelton to be featured on the 1939 Chicago-based radio program Avalon Time, which will be addressed in the following chapter. But beyond that, the Vallee coast-to-coast radio spots kept his name out there in entertainment circles. Just before Skelton’s second Vallee guest appearance, career-making reporter/radio personality Walter Winchell discussed the comedian’s film future in his widely syndicated newspaper column, On Broadway: “‘Red’ Skelton, the RKO ‘find’ will get two Gs per [$2,000 a week]. He is better described as a gentile Milton Berle.”42 This was just one more bit of 1937 documentation that Skelton had arrived.

  Before leaving the subject of Skelton’s visits to Vallee’s program, one should note the boost it gave to Stillwell as a performer. Previously, she was an often unbilled stooge for their vaudeville stage act; initially she had even been encouraged by Skelton’s manager to play down their marriage so as not to distract from any potential Skelton sex appeal. But by Skelton’s second Vallee guest spot, Stillwell emerged as nearly an equal performing partner. In fact, for the sake of all Skelton’s newfound hometown-focused humor, Kansas City-born Stillwell became a Vincennes native, too. This development especially pleased an unnamed critic for the Vincennes Post, who happily also recorded one of the couple’s joint routines for Vallee: “Recalling their days together in the old school house here, he [Red] reminded her of the way she used to look over his shoulder and copy his answers. ‘Yes,’ responded his wife cynically, ‘and then we BOTH flunked!’”43

  This tardy recognition of Stillwell occurred in NBC’s Chicago studios, where Vallee had temporarily taken his New York-based radio program on the road.44 Vallee’s visit to Chicago might be taken as yet another example of Skelton’s rise in 1937 entertainment circles. That is, Skelton was then performing at the Chez Paree’s nightclub, which was to be immediately followed by a six-week booking at the Palace Theater. A quick follow-up to Skelton’s hit first appearance on Vallee’s program would have been impossible without the host taking his show to Chicago.

  Vincennes press coverage of this event also sketched out Skelton’s ongoing close ties with hometown mentor Stout. The veteran entertainer’s daughter, Frankie Stout, had been in Chicago for some dance classes. Since much of this time coincided with the Skeltons’ bookings in the city, Frankie stayed with the couple in their Seneca Hotel suite. The young dancer had her own studio back in Vincennes, and through the years Skelton had always generously credited Frankie with giving him his first dancing tips, back when they were both youngsters.

  A fourth pivotal event for Skelton in 1937 involved a trip to Hollywood to shoot a supporting role in Having Wonderful Time. This was pretty heady stuff for a youngster who still felt like a bit of an impostor. Shortly before the film’s 1938 East Coast opening, Skelton confessed to a New York Sun critic, after crediting this movie break to his appearances at Loew’s State Theatre: “I may seem kind of smart-alecky out there … [on the stage]. But, gee, I don’t feel like that. Sometimes I wonder how long they’ll stand for it. I’ve got a feeling that some day they’ll just come around to the back and say, ‘All right, Skelton, that’s enough. You’ve had your fling. Now go on away. We’ve had enough of you.’”45

  Skelton and the thoughtful star Ginger Rogers in Having Wonderful Time (1938). (Wes D. Gehring Stills Collection)

  Besides this “I’m not worthy” mindset, which was probably intensified by the widespread poverty of the Great Depression, the workaholic Skelton also had difficulty coping with the seemingly casual pace of filmmaking. Once again, Stillwell played mother hen, later observing, “Nobody explained to him why he had to be on the set at 9 a.m. and stay on call, when they might not use him until 3 in the afternoon. So he would just wander out. I don’t know how many times I found him up in Hollywood Boulevard when I thought he was at work; I must have sneaked him back into the [RKO] studio at least fifteen times. Finally, I had to go to work with him to make him happy.”46

  Skelton’s take on this easy twelve-week movie commitment, which began after the comedian’s late summer bookings in Chicago, sounds like the honest hardworking midwesterner that he was: “Why, I didn’t really earn one penny of that [$2,000 a week] salary out there [in Hollywood]. I do more work than that just for an audition or a free rehearsal.”47 Still, with vaudeville largely being reduced to stage shows in support of large city movie palace screenings, Skelton realized film needed to be part of his future. Regardless, his Having Wonderful Time costars, Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., were very helpful in showing him the movie ropes. Plus, Rogers had even given the comedian some tips on one of his many hobbies, photography.

  The final key event to Skelton’s magical 1937 involves a cumulative factor—the comedian’s numerous acclaimed appearances that year at the Capitol Theatre in Washington, D.C., brought him to the attention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s White House.48 Roosevelt’s fascination with the entertainment industry and its potential to aid charitable causes dated from at least World War I. On April 14, 1918, Roosevelt, then the assistant secretary of the navy, had joined movie stars Charlie Chaplin, Doug
las Fairbanks Sr., Mary Pickford, and Marie Dressler in a huge war-bond rally in Washington, D.C.

  Roosevelt, a later victim of polio, subsequently turned his annual January birthday celebration into a charity fund-raiser for infantile paralysis. And across the nation schoolchildren also collected money through the March of Dimes program. Because of all Skelton’s 1937 Capitol Theatre attention, the comedian acted as the master of ceremonies at the president’s Birthday Ball for four consecutive years (1938 to 1941).49 Besides the prestige this would bring to any performer, it must have been yet another “pinch me, I’m dreaming” moment for Skelton, the former poverty-stricken kid from Vincennes hobnobbing with a president! What is more, after the comedian’s 1940 Birthday Ball duties, a very impressed Mickey Rooney went out of his way to give Skelton’s movie career a major assist.

  One might summarize the amazing turn of events that passed for Skelton’s 1937 by linking the year to one of the iconic Hollywood landmarks—the famous huge letters/sign, “HOLLYWOODLAND” overlooking the city from the foothills (the “LAND” portion of the lettering was removed in 1949). I have always much preferred the term Hollywoodland over Hollywood. Most American success stories, whether in or out of the entertainment industry, are not really about any geographical place. Instead, as a more recent critic has metaphorically observed, “It’s about a state of mind, and ‘Hollywoodland’ suggests a state of mind. The pursuit of stardom [whatever the field] is not restricted to Hollywood. You could call America Hollywoodland. Everybody wants to be a star.”50 In 1937 Skelton was beginning to live everybody’s dream.