Red Skelton

by Wes Gehring

  Though a near-death experience quickly puts the superficial world of reviews into perspective, Skelton’s subsequent Palladium engagement was a triumph. The London Times stated, “Mr. Skelton … does more than many of his fellow-visitors from the American screen. His patter, of course, is as smoothly sophisticated, but he has a very pretty talent for pantomime which is all his own. He can twist that large, mobile, and deceptively naïve face into the semblance of quite different faces, those of two ill-matched boxers and the referee, or the face of a man deeply moved by a film while engaged in eating an ice [cream].”31 In contrast, the Los Angeles Examiner’s critique keyed upon the response of the Palladium audiences. For example, it documented everything from the crowd’s frequent “roars of laughter,” to “the conclusion of each show [when] there were … cries of ‘Bravo.’”32

  On a more personal level, Davis was euphoric about her husband’s Palladium success: “Red has simply won London. He’s been doing three shows daily and every performance is a sell-out.”33 The comedian’s friend and then current mentor, writer Gene Fowler, also part of Skelton’s travel entourage, was equally positive about Skelton’s Palladium run, as well as upset about a slight to his friend by entertainer Danny Kaye. Fowler told the Chicago Tribune, “Skelton is a big hit … not withstanding all manner of handicaps [such as] Danny Kaye failed to introduce him [as is the hitherto unbroken tradition] on Danny’s last night at the Palladium.”34

  This slight might seem like small potatoes to an American. In the hallowed tradition of this celebrated setting, however, it was considered a major insult. Custom long dictated that the star in residence introduce the next headliner from the stage. With Skelton and Davis seated in a balcony box, surrounded by friends, posed for Kaye’s acknowledgement, the reigning star closed his act with no mention of Skelton. Even Kaye’s definitive biographer, Martin Gottfried, later wrote of the incident: “An audible gasp [came] from the audience … The slur of Skelton was unmistakable—and terrible. Georgia Skelton began to cry. Helen Parnell [wife of the Palladium’s managing director] whispered aloud, ‘What is the matter with that man? It’s tradition! That’s never been done!’”35

  Sadly, another event during Kaye’s final show foreshadowed the entertainer’s conscious decision to slight Skelton. Kaye unexpectedly added a comic drunk routine to his act, as if to preempt the impact of Skelton’s signature “Guzzler’s Gin” routine. No real explanation has ever come forth on why Kaye had it in for Skelton. Most speculation centers on the fact that Kaye was a hopeless Anglophile—to the point that period insiders used to joke he actually thought he was English. Skelton’s then recent wave of hit films had also been popular in Great Britain, and his live show at the Palladium was highly anticipated, fueled all the more by Red’s brave turn aboard the troubled airliner. Thus, it is possible that egotistical Kaye was fearful of losing his status as favored American performer in Britain to the upstart Skelton. Fittingly, when Bob Hope played the Palladium that same season, he comically skewered Kaye’s English-tinged vanity with jokes like, “Danny Kaye visits me when he comes to America. You should see his dressing room here [in London]—two mirrors and a throne.”

  Whatever caused Kaye’s pettiness, it did nothing to derail Skelton’s hit status in London. Indeed, the insult might have assisted the comedian’s Palladium run with a sympathy factor. One might even interpret a line from the London Times review—“Mr. Skelton … does more than many of his fellow-visitors from the American screen”—as a veiled knock against Kaye. Whereas today this probably would have descended into a game of celebrity bashing, Skelton took the high road and let it drop. Consistent with this attitude, in an unrelated article a few years later, he observed, “I don’t like to steal from Will Rogers but I’ve yet to meet the human being I didn’t like.”36

  Skelton’s critical acclaim continued through the fall, with arguably the biggest debut in television’s young history. The Hollywood Reporter declared, “Move over, Mr. Berle—Mr. Skelton has arrived … the new medium has found its newest—and perhaps greatest—comedy star.”37 The New York World Telegram said, “[Skelton] has an India rubber face and an apparently unbruisable body … There is a kind of joyous lunacy in Mr. Skelton’s work. And for this reason I’ve always thought he’d do better in television than most radio performers in transition.”38 All-important Variety opined, “[Skelton’s] a terrif bet for TV [and he] seemed completely at ease before the lenses. His material was good and he tossed in what seemed to be some ad libs in fine style.”39 One might simply summarize the critiques by recycling the Los Angeles Herald Express’s review headline: “Red Skelton TV Debut Brings Down House.”40

  Still, the comedian’s tour-de-force material that night would have been familiar to either period viewers or to fans from much later in Skelton’s career. To illustrate, while he introduced all his characters that night, the most praised sketch involved his oldest and most Hoosier-anchored antihero, the beloved Clem Kadiddlehopper. There was also a decidedly Edna Stillwell tone to his opening comedy. His first wife/writer had penned such signature Skelton routines as “Guzzler’s Gin” and the donut dunking bit that segued into various later “how to” sketches. Consequently, Skelton’s initial small-screen program featured both different “tipsy types” and a tutorial on various ways servicemen hitchhike.

  By Emmy time in February of 1952, Skelton must have felt like he could walk on water. As his own producer, he took home the statuette for Best Comedy Show. Plus, Skelton was selected as television’s Best Comedian. Award night also saw him garner more kudos for modesty. In beating out Lucille Ball for the latter Emmy, he said, “I don’t like this. I think it should go to Lucy.” Several critics, such as the Los Angeles Herald Express’s Owen Collin, were impressed: “This is where Skelton endeared himself in our hearts forever.”41 Couple all this short-term video acclaim with his remarkable run of hit movies leading up to the series, not to mention his real-life heroics aboard the crippled plane, and the Palladium triumph, and one has almost an unprecedented string of high-profile success. Moreover, just after his television debut, MGM had the East Coast premiere of the comedian’s latest picture, Texas Carnival (1951). The future box-office hit was praised in a manner reminiscent of his recent small-screen reviews. The Los Angeles Examiner declared “that irrepressible clown … [is] in nearly every scene, so that’s quite a lot of fun.”42 (According to the studio’s records for 1951–52, Texas Carnival proved even more profitable than MGM’s classic 1952 film Singin’ in the Rain.43)

  Flash forward to the following fall and, shock of shocks, the wheels suddenly came off the Skelton success bus. The comic who could do no wrong for so long was almost universally panned at the start of his second television season. As the media critic for the Washington Star summarized less than two years later, “Skelton turned to the movie camera for his [video] shows and almost plummeted right out of television.”44 What does that mean? Skelton’s program was “live” the first season and the stress nearly killed him. In fact, when his sponsor demanded the comedian return to that format early in the disastrous second season, Skelton said, “He can either have a live comedian on a filmed show or a dead comedian on a live show.”45 Underlining the seriousness of this statement, the quote appeared in a syndicated article titled, “Red Skelton May Quit Television.”

  Unfortunately, while it was healthier for Skelton to film his series in advance, popular thinking was that live comedy had the edge, as well as pushing the performer’s creativity. As the darkly comic Los Angeles Mirror critic so entertainingly put it in an analogy that seemingly equates race-car crashes with comedy, “Red Skelton is on film now and has lost his magic touch.… Before we wondered if he was going to break his neck [through slapstick]. Now we know he won’t because with the film being made ahead of time we would have heard about it.”46 Worse yet, without a studio audience, one must deal with the patented artificiality of a laugh track.

  In addition to the stress of live television, a 1950s small-scr
een series was much more grueling. Here is Skelton’s frank realization following his first season: “After 39 weeks before the camera [today’s season is roughly half that length] I can honestly say that for the first time in my life I’ve found out how utterly exhausted a human being can be.”47 In addition, Skelton was involved in nearly every behind-the-scenes facet of the program. On top of that, he was still doing his radio program that necessitated its own original material each week.

  Of course, the plus side to his train wreck of a second season was that 1950s television programming had more stability. A series was not canceled so quickly back then, especially if a network and/or a sponsor had a great deal invested, as was the case with Skelton. Today the comedian would have been history almost immediately. What became Skelton’s greatest legacy, that twenty year small-screen reign, would have been nipped in the second year. It literally took Skelton years to return to his 1951–52 top-four rating status.48

  The irony here is that his very successful movies were filmed, and like the beginning of his second television season, they also did not have an audience. The difference was that Skelton was doing too much on his program, and unlike the movies, he needed a finished product every week. His sponsors (Proctor and Gamble) and NBC brainstormed, with suggestions ranging from a new format (more of a variety show) to a revisionist “live” program. The latter course won.

  The shooting of Skelton’s show now involved what the industry calls a “stop-and-go” method. The individual scenes were live, but there were breaks between segments. These allowed Skelton adequate time for the various comic costume changes, as well as giving him a brief respite before morphing into a different character. There was also a new studio that was more audience friendly. As much as Skelton liked to perform for a crowd, he had vetoed an audience when filming his second season because all the equipment made spectator viewing haphazard at best, especially since Eagle Lion Studio had not been designed for an audience. That was to change. His show was not fixed yet, but important corrections had been made.

  Sadly, there were bigger personal problems with which to deal. Skelton was near meltdown mode, not unlike his nervous breakdown during the war. Performers need more validation than most people. As the stereotype goes, that is why entertainers are so quick to kiss and embrace when meeting. Well, these needs seemed doubled for Skelton. Long after he left television, an interviewer asked how he would like to be remembered, with most of the options as a variation on being a great clown. After a pause, Skelton said, “I think I’d just like to be remembered as a nice guy.”49

  With this in mind, the broadside of bad reviews for his second television season were devastating for Skelton, especially after the amazingly unmitigated successes of the first season. Granted, anyone would be upset, but for man-child Skelton, who had had so much of his career orchestrated by motherly first wife, Stillwell, criticism was extremely hurtful. Keep in mind that entertainment was all but a religion for Skelton. The field of laughter, to paraphrase poet Donald Hall, was Skelton’s Bible, Koran, Plato and Aristotle, Euclid, Thomas Aquinas, and Boy Scout Handbook.50 Among his voluminous unpublished private papers is a folder labeled “The Critic.” Here is a telling observation on being a critic: “A godless being, that hasn’t discovered that the theatre does as much good as the church and that those in the theatrical world are as dedicated as the most devout monk.”51

  Worse yet, 1952 was the year Skelton and Stillwell parted company professionally. Though long divorced, she had guided Skelton’s career into the 1950s, watching over every detail, from producing his radio program to standing in the wings with a fresh shirt when he came off wet with sweat. More importantly, she was his primary cheerleader. For example, during any free moment of a program they had a special ritual: “‘Okay?’ he would ask anxiously, ‘Okay,’ she would say smilingly.”52

  In a series of articles about Stillwell in the late 1940s, her ongoing significance to her ex-husband had been underlined yet again. However, along more disturbing lines, there was the suggestion that her single-mindedness towards making Skelton’s career work had been the cause of her second marriage failing. Thus, in early 1951 she took a leave from her multidimensional position with Skelton, though he told the press, “Edna will be back with me when my TV show starts in October.”53

  Although she was said to have logged some low-profile work during Skelton’s first small-screen season, she was definitely gone, and gone permanently, during the second. Indeed, many industry insiders, such as influential Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons, blamed Skelton’s fall from television grace, in part, on Stillwell’s absence. While this was probably a factor, the more debilitating component for Skelton was simply her being gone. After all, she had been metaphorically holding his hand since the walkathon days of the early 1930s.

  History still has yet to reveal the ultimate catalyst for Stillwell’s exit, but the general consensus is that Davis was responsible. When the Skeltons had the most public of temporary splits in late 1952, Stillwell and the disappointing series were again in the news. Parsons suggested the domestic donnybrook was caused by the couple’s disagreement over Skelton’s desire to bring Stillwell back to save the sinking series.54 (Skelton was always sensitive to claims that Davis wore the pants in the family, and he had even written Parsons the previous year, 1951, to explain that Stillwell’s initial leave had been health related.55)

  Regardless, the Skeltons’ 1952 fight provides the most revealing window into their marriage—one that often sounds like the comedian’s union with Stillwell. Exhibit one would be Skelton as the “kidult,” beginning with the fact he actually called syndicated columnist Earl Wilson, saying “I had to get away because I’m ruining my life … There are 12 guys [gag writers] in this room trying to stop me from telling about it but it’s definite—Georgia and I are getting a divorce.”56 By late-edition papers of the same day, such as the Seattle Times, he was reconsidering those divorce plans, claiming “I’m so much in love it’s pitiful.”57 The only real point of contention to hit the papers seemed to reaffirm Skelton’s man-child tendencies. Davis told the New York World, “He’d come in at four o’clock in the morning—he often worked very late at night—and want to play with them [the children]. Then they’d have terrible colds. I finally told him, ‘Red, I’ll have to lock my [bedroom] door [the children’s rooms were through her suite]. I can’t allow my babies to get up at that hour.’”58

  Conversely, Georgia often played parent to Skelton, as quoted in the Los Angeles Herald Express: “I’ve had plenty of trouble with this boy, only before it just never got into the papers. If I was going to quit, I would have quit a long time ago.”59 Still, as had Stillwell, Davis invariably spent more time defending Skelton: “He deserves a little happiness—he makes so many other people happy. It’s true we don’t get along. But maybe a guy with that much pressure on him doesn’t get along with anybody in the world.”60

  As Stillwell often put a comic slant on her differences with Skelton, so did Davis. The San Francisco News reported her sardonic comment on a reconciliation: “He may come back home [soon], since he left his gag files behind.”61 The most curiously sad parallel between the two Mrs. Skeltons involved a Davis comment that almost exactly parroted a Stillwell quote cited earlier. Each woman felt a need to defuse negative behavior and even become a “whipping boy” (Stillwell’s phrase62), all for the sake of his gift. This is Davis’s take on the phenomenon: “He gets this way [being difficult] because he’s artistic. He’s a high-strung genius and he gets emotionally upset so he tees off on the person nearest him, and that’s me.”63 Such is the hidden cost of art. Of the many comedians I have profiled, rare was the one without such private demons. In fact, the cynic might say Skelton was just emulating yet another facet of his comedy hero—the brilliant, but mercurial, Chaplin.

  While the media would have undoubtedly moved quickly to another story—this being Hollywood, after all—headlines about the Skeltons’ spat were soon replaced by two unlik
ely new developments in the comedian’s life, a health danger and an artistic risk. He seems to have been a candidate for reality television decades before its development.

  Chapter 11 Notes

  1. Georgia Skelton, “Do Comics Make Good Husbands?” Screenland, June 1952, 58.

  2. Harrison B. Summers, ed., A Thirty-Year History of Programs Carried on National Radio Networks in the United States, 1926–1956 (New York: Arno Press, 1971), 165.

  3. Pare Lorentz, Free and Easy review, Judge, May 17, 1930.

  4. Wes D. Gehring, W. C. Fields: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984) and Groucho and W. C. Fields: Huckster Comedians (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994).

  5. The Yellow Cab Man review, Motion Picture Herald, February 25, 1950.

  6. Philip K. Scheuer, “‘Yellow Cab Man’ Takes Side Street in Chases,” Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1950.

  7. Special Collections, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Legal Department Records, 1950–51, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter cited as MGM Legal Department Records).

  8. The Yellow Cab Man review, Motion Picture Herald, February 25, 1950.

  9. Cobbett Steinberg, Reel Facts: The Movie Book of Records (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 345.

  10. Philip Hamburger, Three Little Words review, The New Yorker, August 26, 1950, pp. 68–69.

  11. Wylie Williams, Three Little Words review, Hollywood Citizen News, July 22, 1950.

  12. Kay Proctor, “Skelton Film at 2 Houses,” Los Angeles Examiner, January 26, 1951.

  13. Tom Coffey, “Red Skelton at Best When Not Himself,” Los Angeles Mirror, January 26, 1951.

  14. Wes Gehring, Joe E. Brown: Film Comedian and Baseball Buffoon (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2006).