by Wes Gehring
As previously suggested, by the proposed Houdini film, the comedian and the director had an understanding that they would first bring any special scenarios to each other. Thus, it was also assumed that a pet project of Skelton and first wife, Edna Stillwell, would be under Simon’s direction. That is, the former couple had “cooked up three original stories for him [Skelton] to make at Metro [MGM] … [And] ‘One,’ says Red, ‘is the story of my life with Edna.’”20 As with the projected Houdini film, however, the Skelton-Stillwell script went unproduced.
The joint script by the former couple was yet another example of their ongoing post-divorce professional relationship. At the time Sheilah Graham comically mused in print, “I wonder how the current Mrs. Skelton will like that!”21 As a footnote to the biographical Skelton-Stillwell script, it should be noted that during the immediate post-World War II period the comedian was especially obsessed with documenting his life. In 1946 veteran Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper reported that Skelton was writing a book about his army experiences with the entertaining title, “There’s a Skelton in My Closet.”22
One can then couple this memoir news item with two related stories from early 1948. First, in a syndicated article from yet another filmland columnist, Harold Heffernan revealed, “Red Skelton is working on a partially fictionalized autobiography.”23 What makes this statement especially fascinating is that “fictionalized autobiography” perfectly describes Skelton’s tall-tale tendencies in interviews.24
Second, shortly after this article appeared, Graham reported that the comedian would appear in the independent film Redso the Clown once he completed his MGM contract: “It’s a circus story based on his own early life and is now being written by former wife Edna.”25 Like all the previously noted tentative projects, going back to Simon’s Houdini script, Redso the Clown was never produced. Simon, more than even Skelton mentor Keaton, made filmmaking fun for Skelton, and had Skelton and Simon been able to make some of these unrealized projects, maybe the comedian would not have been so anxious to leave movies for radio and television. Coincidentally, while one might date the death knell for Skelton’s film career to the 1951 beginning of his legendary television series, I would link it to another event that year—Simon’s unexpected death at age forty-one.
Cinema’s Simon and Keaton notwithstanding, Skelton was more drawn to radio and television for several reasons, starting with the greater artistic control it provided. And this was a subject on which the comedian could be downright poignant: “I want to be good on television … In the movies, people still haven’t seen me. They’ve seen a [film] writer and a [film] director. My new NBC [television] contract reads that I’ve got to be the [star and the] director.”26
Second, Skelton recognized the phenomenal possibilities for television, likening the new small-screen medium to the pioneering days of film. In addition, Skelton was drawn to the informal familiarity of the small screen: “I consider the medium so intimate that I’m going to devote my first [1951 television] show to introducing myself and family. I’ll be like knocking at the doors of strangers’ homes and asking, ‘May I come in?’ This is the kind of fellow I am. If you like me, I hope you’ll ask me back to your home next week.”27 Fittingly, as corny as this might now sound, Skelton’s genuinely heartfelt comment was consistent with a performer who spent an earlier summer touring the United States conducting his own personal radio survey. The brainstorm of his like-minded populist manager Stillwell, the trip allowed the comedian to meet and poll his fans on what they wanted from Skelton’s already highly rated program. Traveling in a station wagon equipped for sleeping, they found this to be groundbreaking radio “research,” especially given that the star was doubling as the chief fact finder. Consequently, it was perfectly logical for Skelton to metaphorically ask his potential television audience, “May I come in?”
A third very practical reason for Skelton’s radio and television preference simply came down to money. While largely forgotten today, the commercial airwaves offered Skelton money that dwarfed even a movie star’s pay. For example, while his MGM weekly salary in the post-World War II 1940s was approximately $3,000, Skelton made $7,500 a week on radio.28 Granted, the comedian received a modest raise from MGM in 1948 after the success of the Columbia-produced Fuller Brush Man had the latter studio bidding for his services. That same year, Skelton signed a new six-year radio contract worth $3 million. At $500,000 a year, this figured out to nearly $10,000 a week. Moreover, Skelton’s eventual 1951 jump to television produced a $10 million, seven-year contract and banner headlines around the country.29 While most of the headlines prominently featured that eye-popping monetary amount, one small-market publication offered a succinctly apt summation: “Red Skelton Signs Fabulous Contract.”30 Of course, Skelton’s comment was more comically verbose, “Can you imagine anyone giving me that much money? They must be crazy.”31
The film and television industries, however, were in the midst of a major entertainment war, and like a famous athlete being paid a king’s ransom to join a new league, signing a film star like Skelton gave a fledgling medium such as television greater legitimacy. Though the comedian’s greatest motivation towards working in radio and television was undoubtedly driven by artistic control, these astronomical salary numbers had to be a factor, especially given Skelton’s poverty-stricken childhood and his lifelong fascination with money-making schemes.
Finally, Skelton believed that television gave him the chance to be a small-screen Charlie Chaplin. The creator of cinema’s immortal Tramp figure was a huge influence on the television Skelton, from his own Freddie the Freeloader character to Skelton’s later purchase and transformation of Chaplin’s old studio into a television production house. Appropriately, publications from pivotal 1951 (when Skelton entered television) are peppered with references to Chaplin. One Kansas City Star article also provided an especially rich perspective on the multiplicity of ways in which Chaplin citations occur. For instance, after reporting, “Red says he hopes to do for TV what Chaplin did for silent movies,” the piece added that prominent entertainment biographer Gene Fowler believed “Red is probably the greatest ‘sight’ comic since Chaplin.”32 Furthermore, the article noted that Skelton even had copies of all of Chaplin’s films.
Charlie Chaplin as his immortal Tramp character in his greatest film, The Gold Rush (1925). On the eve of Skelton’s televisison career, he constantly referenced Chaplin. (Wes D. Gehring Stills Collection)
As if documenting his knowledge of the Tramp filmography, another article from this seminal year for Skelton quoted the comedian as saying, “Kids can smell out a comedian who puts himself above his audience. That was the great thing about Charlie Chaplin, who is the master artist of all. There is hunger, pathos, and humbleness in Chaplin.”33 When his television show proved to be an instant hit, critics, such as the Chicago Tribune’s Larry Wolters, often compared Skelton to the silent star: “His partisans insist he’s the funniest fellow since Chaplin.”34 New York World Telegram critic Harriet Van Horne was especially moved by an early Chaplin-like small screen Skelton sketch where he portrayed several types of people who frequent a cocktail lounge (part of the ongoing comedy legacy of Stillwell, who, starting with the donut dunking routine, wrote so many bits anchored to observing everyday people). Van Horne felt “the best of these characterizations was one that very few other comedians could do: the lonely woman who drinks,” which inspired her review title: “Skelton Has Chaplin Tragic-Comic Touch.”35
When yet another television critic asked Skelton how he hoped to maintain the medium’s frantic pace, the comedian pulled a biography of Chaplin from his library: “Look at this. Here’s a list of all the pictures Chaplin made. You can see that he turned out an average of [one] one-reel comedy every week for several years. Now there’s a guy who evidently wasn’t short of ideas for material.”36 Though Skelton does not quite get the numbers correct here—only in Chaplin’s frenzied first film year (1914, under Mack Sennett) did he even flirt wit
h producing a movie short each week, ultimately totaling thirty-five—the key point is that as Skelton began his television career, he was especially obsessed with the iconic comedian.37
Interestingly, while Skelton had always held Chaplin in high regard, even when his best film work had been more reflective of Keaton, late 1940s developments in Skelton’s personal life encouraged this Chaplin connection in two ways. First, Skelton’s second wife, Georgia Davis, had orchestrated her husband’s friendship with the writer Gene Fowler, a close friend and chronicler of such celebrated comedy filmmakers as Mack Sennett and W. C. Fields. Davis believed the much older Fowler could be a supportive father figure and mentor to her husband. This proved to be a fruitful bit of intellectual matchmaking, from Fowler tutorials on Chaplin to the revelation that the hard-drinking Fields had been a huge fan of Skelton’s, possibly drawn to Skelton’s “Guzzler’s Gin” sketch. Indeed, Fowler revealed, “Bill [Fields] often said before he died that no one else but Red could play Fields.”38 (An unrealized Fowler-Skelton project was to make a film biography on Fields, with Skelton playing the classic huckster.)
W. C. Fields on the set of Poppy (1936), a production built upon the Broadway play that made the comedian’s career. (Wes D. Gehring Stills Collection)
Second, the pièce de resistance for hero worship comes from a positive encounter with one’s special luminary. Through regularly scheduled dinner parties at the home of Los Angeles Examiner critic Cobina Wright, the Skeltons were able to occasionally dine with Chaplin and the love of his life, fourth wife Oona O’Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill. Skelton’s joy over these meetings was compounded by being able to successfully entertain this comedy master. Davis later confessed, “When he made Chaplin laugh at Cobina’s he was so proud.”39 Host and critic Wright was more expansive on Skelton’s entertainment skills concerning Chaplin and other comedians: “I have seen that now legendary comic, Charlie Chaplin, hold his sides, doubled over with laughter at Red’s antics … [and] men like Fred Allen and Jack Benny, choking with laughter, tears streaming down their cheeks, have begged him to stop long enough to catch their breath.”40
One can assume, however, that for all of Skelton’s admiration for Chaplin, there was little discussion of politics. As demonstrated earlier in the book, with regard to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Skelton’s political views were decidedly conservative, while the Tramp’s alter ego was 180 degrees to the left. In fact, the year after the plethora of Skelton quotes concerning Chaplin, the veteran funnyman’s longstanding left-wing politics resulted in his reentry permit to the United States being canceled. The comedian and his family were en route to Europe by ship for the London premiere of his latest picture, Limelight (1952). Because Chaplin was still a British citizen, despite a long U.S. residency, any attempt to return would have necessitated an appearance before an immigration board of inquiry. Given that Communist witch-hunting was then in full swing, and Chaplin had already long been persecuted in the conservative American press, he chose to relocate to an estate in Switzerland.
Sadly, through the fear tactics of politicians such as Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, many Americans of the early 1950s believed assorted witch hunts were more important than preserving basic civil liberties. The blacklisting of many politically liberal artists sent shock waves through the entertainment industry—fueled by the inquisition-like tactics of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Unfortunately, frightened artists, such as Skelton’s close friend Vincent Price, became HUAC “friendly witnesses,” naming names of possible Communists in the entertainment industry in order to safeguard their own careers. (Price’s leftist political activity as a young actor was the leverage HUAC used to force him into an unfortunate action.)
There was no such Skelton political baggage to be used against the comedian. Moreover, with an established conservative mindset, Skelton was predisposed to say the right thing. Of course, he might have received coaching from one of Hollywood’s most rabid anti-Communists—syndicated columnist Hopper. Either way, Skelton’s comments in her column also had the patented embellishments so synonymous with his public statements: “The Commies may point to our slums, or take in people who like to think they never had a chance. I could have stayed in these slums and rotted but I didn’t. I got out on my initiative. And anybody else with the proper initiative can get out, too.”41
Despite these rather over-the-top comments about Communism and the alleged slums of Vincennes, I cannot help thinking that Skelton’s 1951 proclivity for positive comments about Chaplin was partly driven as a defense of his hero. At a time when political criticism of the silent comedy giant had reached all the way to the halls of Congress, Skelton would not have been the first period artist to attempt to counteract this overblown persecution of Chaplin. For example, in Gene Kelly’s Oscar-winning picture An American in Paris (1951), Kelly performs a brief homage to the comedian’s Tramp, mimicking the “little fellow’s” shuffling gate to entertain some Parisian children.
Between the postwar resumption of Skelton’s multifaced entertainment career and the 1951 launching of the comedian’s television series, he had never been busier. As a late 1947 article in Silver Screen magazine stated, “If there’s a harder working comedian in Hollywood than Red Skelton, he’s crazy, because Red already works twice as hard as he should. His routines are not just chatter. Red invariably knocks himself out all over the place in putting over a gag.”42 Similar to Willie Mays, the Hall of Fame baseball player who worked so hard at his game that he was periodically hospitalized for exhaustion, the conscientious comedian’s equally driven work ethic necessitated periodic medical attention, too.
If being a harried helter Skelton movie and radio star were not enough, the postwar private life of the comedian was equally complex. At the forefront of attention was what Movieland magazine, among many other publications, referred to as “The Two Mrs. Skeltons.”43 Skelton was married to second wife Davis, but former wife Stillwell managed his money and produced the comedian’s radio program. But beyond that, Skelton felt he owed his career to Stillwell and continued to be professionally insecure without her advice on all major decisions. Mix in Skelton’s guilt over leaving this still dedicated Skelton disciple, and one has a lot to cope with if you are the second Mrs. Skelton.
Beyond all this, there was the simple fact that Stillwell was either ever present or close by. After the war she had arranged for Skelton and Davis to live in the Wilshire Palms, a luxury apartment complex owned by the comedian and Stillwell. But Stillwell and her husband, former Skelton director Frank Borzage, also lived there. In addition, the equally driven Stillwell often dropped by unannounced to discuss business and/or radio material with Skelton. Georgia found the whole arrangement peculiar—a feeling also shared by Skelton’s extended family.44
In Stillwell’s defense, however, there was a great deal for her to confer with Skelton about, since the two were very proud of what they liked to call their ongoing professional arrangement, Skeltons, Incorporated. Couple this with the fact that Hollywood is all about mixing business with pleasure, and the two Mrs. Skeltons were frequently thrown together. For example, the weekly ritual of dining at the famous Brown Derby restaurant following Skelton’s radio broadcast was often an extended “family” occasion involving staff and spouses.
Even Christmas generosity could get Skelton in trouble. One Yuletide Skelton “bought two identical mink coats, in the $5,000 range, and gave one to Edna and one to Georgia. [As Look magazine comically noted] this sort of thing is not recommended by marriage counselors.”45 What undoubtedly made the transaction even more galling for Davis was that Stillwell controlled the comedian’s purse strings on large purchases—a safeguard against Skelton’s susceptibility to hucksters and hard-luck stories. While this made good business sense, having your husband’s ex-wife sign off on your Christmas present, which she was also receiving, defused the magic.
Differences over Stillwell produced some classic donnybrooks between
the Skeltons. However, Stillwell was not always the catalyst for their marital discord. Davis found that living with this insecure man-child was not an easy task. She later wrote, “He still is highly changeable in his moods. I never can be certain of them but I know they are caused by a [childlike] lack of a long-run view, by subconscious fears that persist. I know I have to be six jumps ahead in awareness of how he’s about to feel.”46
Skelton’s second wife, Georgia Davis, in costume for a small role in Judy Garland’s The Harvey Girls (1946). Davis retired from films soon after this movie. (Vincennes University Foundation, Red Skelton Collection)
When Davis was unable to circumvent Skelton’s depression, or differences over Stillwell surfaced, arguments often turned ugly. Sometimes heavy drinking further fueled these fights and a pattern soon developed. Skelton would storm out of their apartment and check into an area hotel. In a day or two tempers would cool and all would be forgiven, for a time. Despite this, or maybe because of this, the couple decided to start a family. A daughter, Valentina Marie, was born May 5, 1947. With Skelton anxious for a son, Valentina soon had a baby brother—Richard Freeman was born June 14, 1948. (Skelton’s given name was Richard, and Freeman was in honor of an early Skelton agent and adviser, Freeman Keyes.)