Fleischer Studios cast members
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His parents were actors, but Jack decided to pursue his love of art. He got a job as an inbetweener (rookie animator) at the Fleischer studio. Dave Fleischer happened to hear him singing the Popeye theme song in a funny voice, and asked Jack to try voicing one cartoon. He later became a writer at the Fleischer studio.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Jackson Beck was born on 23 July 1912 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Take the Money and Run (1969), Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950) and Radio Days (1987). He was married to Bernice. He died on 28 July 2004 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Her Orthodox Jewish family was totally averse to her having an entertainment career. Her parents and grandparents forced her to leave the Theatre Guild school (New York) while still a teenager and had their wills drawn up accordingly so as to discourage this career choice.
Studied drama at Columbia University, and belonged to the American Theatre Wing.
When Mae was 17 and living in the South Bronx, she won a local contest to find the girl who most resembled Helen Kane, a popular singer known as the "Boop-Oop-A-Doop Queen". She was promptly signed by an agent and began performing in the Vaudeville circuit. Billing herself as "Mae Questel - Personality Singer of Personality Songs," she performed dead-on vocal imitations of Maurice Chevalier, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and of course Helen Kane, among many others. Her mimic talent also provided duck, dog, chicken, owl, monkey, lion and baby sounds for radio shows.
Betty Boop creator Max Fleischer heard Mae doing her "boop-oop-a-doop" routine and hired her to do the character's voice in 1931. She served as the voice on more than 150 Betty Boop animated shorts until the character was retired in 1939. Her recording of "On The Good Ship Lollipop" sold more than 2 million during the Depression.
Best known as the voice of "Betty Boop", she was also the voice of not-so-less-famous "Olive Oyl" in the Popeye cartoons, as well as the toddler Swee'pea and others. She did Popeye's voice once, in the cartoon Shape Ahoy (1945), because Jack Mercer was serving in the military during World War II. Her versatility is probably better appreciated in the cartoon Never Kick a Woman (1936) in which she provides the quivery, nervous-Nellie voice of Olive Oyl, based on comedic actress Zasu Pitts, and the deep, assured, alluring voice of the blonde saleswoman, based on Mae West.
In 1968, the City of Indianapolis honored her with a "Mae Questel Day". In 1979, she won the Troupers Award for outstanding contribution to entertainment.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Worked in minstrel shows as a singer and eccentric dancer from 1893 until 1903. From then until the 1930s was primarily a recording artist. Worked in radio and did sound effects and animal noises for cartoon. Sang old fashioned songs for the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" shorts. Was married three times, divorced twice. Survived by third wife, Madeleine. No children. Made over 5000 recordings. Closely identified with "In My Merry Oldsmobile". Recorded it in 1905 and reprised it in 1932 for General Motors in a promotional film. Also closely identified with recording of "K-k-k-katy".- Actor
- Music Department
- Director
Bandleader, songwriter ("Minnie the Moocher", "Are You Hep to That Jive?"), composer, singer, actor and author, educated at Crane College. While studying law, he sang with the band The Alabamians, and took over the group in 1928. He led The Missourians orchestra, then organized and led his own orchestra, playing at hotels, theaters and nightclubs throughout the US, and making many records. He joined the cast of the touring company of "Porgy and Bess", which performed across the USA and Europe between 1952 and 1954. When that ended, he founded a quartet. Joining ASCAP in 1942, he collaborated musically with Jack Palmer, Buck Ram, Andy Gibson, Clarence Gaskill, Irving Mills and Paul Mills . His other popular song compositions include "Lady With the Fan", "Zaz Zuh Zaz", "Chinese Rhythm", "Are You In Love With Me Again?", "That Man's Here Again", "Peck-A-Doodle-Doo", "I Like Music", "Rustle of Swing", "Three Swings and Out", "The Jumpin' Jive", "Boog It", "Come on with the Come-on", "Silly Old Moon", "Sunset", "Rhapsody in Rhumba", "Are You All Reet?", "Hi-De-Ho Man", "Levee Lullaby", "Let's Go, Joe", "Geechy Joe", and "Hot Air".- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ann Little was born on 1 March 1902 in the USA. She was an actress, known for Boop-Oop-A-Doop (1932), I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You (1932) and Betty Boop's May Party (1933). She was married to Louis Werner. She died on 22 October 1981 in Fort Myers, Florida, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Bonnie Poe was born on 15 October 1912 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Hollywood on Parade No. A-8 (1933), Can You Take It (1934) and I Yam Love Sick (1938). She died on 16 October 1993 in Springfield, Illinois, USA.- Actress
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Margie Hines was born on 15 October 1909 in Glendale, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for By the Sea (1931), Fleischer Cartoons: The Art & Inventions of Max Fleischer (2024) and Way Back When Women Had Their Weigh (1940). She was married to Jesse William Heidtmann and Jack Mercer. She died on 23 December 1985 in Seaford, New York, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
William Costello was born on 2 February 1898 in Rhode Island, USA. He was an actor, known for I Yam What I Yam (1933), Football Bugs (1936) and Lil' Ainjil (1936). He died on 9 October 1971 in San Jose, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Animation Department
Pinto Colvig was the quintessential clown whose own identity was always hidden but whose innate warmhearted character always came through his many talents. His humor tickled the funny bone and touched the heart. Incredibly gifted in music, art and mime, he spoke to different generations in different roles: as a child clown playing a squeaky clarinet, as a full-fledged circus clown under the big top, as a newspaper cartoonist, as a film animator, as a mimic and sound effects wizard, and as the voice of dozens of well-known characters on film, records, radio and television.
Vance DeBar Colvig was born in Jacksonville, Oregon, on September 11, 1892. His school friends nicknamed him after a spotted horse named "Pinto" because of his freckled face - and just like his freckles, the name stuck for his entire life.
Pinto's childhood home was filled with music and laughter, and he was a clown from birth. As the youngest of seven children, he would do anything to get attention. He learned to make people laugh by making faces and playing pranks. He also spent hours mimicking the sounds around him: a rusty gate, farm animals, sneezes, wind, cars, trains, etc. He and his brother Don put on song-and-dance minstrel shows at local functions. Along the way he picked up his instrument of choice, the clarinet, and soon played well enough to join the town band.
It was the clarinet that got Pinto into show business when he was 12. Visiting Portland's "Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition" with his father William, he was magnetized by "The Crazy House" on the Midway where a huckster attracted the crowd with a bass drum and shouts of "Hubba Hubba!" Pinto told the man he could play "squeaky" clarinet and ran back to the hotel to get his instrument. He was hired on the spot and given some oversized old clothes and a derby and, for the first time, white makeup and a clown face. The man told Pinto, "Now you look like a real bozo" ("bozo" was a name given to hobo or tramp clowns in those days). Pinto's act was to play a screechy clarinet while distorting his face and crossing his eyes at the high notes. He later recalled, "I never was able to get circuses and carnivals out of my blood after that."
He went to school during the winter and worked in the circus and vaudeville in the spring. While studying art at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University) and playing with the college band, he became known for his clever cartoons in student publications, his funny "chalk talk" performances improvising a monologue while quickly sketching cartoons, and his unconventional lifestyle. He never took his class courses seriously and his college career ended abruptly in the spring of 1913 when he accepted an offer to do his chalk talks for the prestigious Pantages vaudeville circuit and wound up in Seattle, Washington. There he joined a circus band and traveled throughout the country struggling to make ends meet.
In 1914 he landed a job as a newspaper cartoonist at the "Nevada Rockroller" in Reno, and later the "Carson City News" in Carson City. By the spring of 1915 his cartooning was going well but the lure of the circus was too strong. When the Al G. Barnes Circus came through Carson City, Pinto dropped everything and joined the troupe, once again clowning and playing his clarinet in the circus band.
In those days circuses closed down each winter and Pinto returned to newspaper cartooning wherever he could find a job. While working on a Portland newspaper between seasons in 1916, he met and married Margaret Bourke Slavin, putting an end to his vagabond life as a circus performer. With a family to support, Pinto and Margaret moved to San Francisco, where he returned to the newspaper business writing and drawing cartoons full-time at "The Bulletin" and later the "San Francisco Chronicle". His cartoon series, "Life on the Radio Wave," which poked fun at the way the newly introduced radio was influencing people's lives, was syndicated nationally by United Features Syndicate. He greatly enjoyed cartooning and considered it another form of clowning. "A cartoonist," he said, "is just a clown with a pencil."
While Pinto toiled daily to meet newspaper commitments, he began to spend evenings experimenting with the animation of cartoons and eventually set up his own studio, Pinto Cartoon Comedies Co., where he created one of the first animated silent films in color called "Pinto's Prizma Comedy Revue (1919)". In 1922, after realizing that San Francisco was not the place to break into the movie business, he moved his family to Hollywood. There he would be able to continue his animation work and find a wealth of other things that he could do. He was overjoyed one day to get an offer to join Mack Sennett, the reigning king of movie comedies, who had developed one of the most successful studios of the day, the Keystone Film Co., home of the famous Keystone Kops, Charles Chaplin and many others. Sennett needed an experienced animator for his own films, but Pinto soon found himself also writing and acting in comedies and dramas. In 1928 he teamed up with his friend Walter Lantz to create an early talking cartoon, "Bolivar, the Talking Ostrich (1928)", but unlike Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928), it failed to become a hit. Pinto and Lantz, who would later be the voice of Woody Woodpecker, gave up and went to larger studios.
Disney, who was making "Mickey Mouse" and "Silly Symphony" cartoons, signed Pinto to a contract in 1930. Pinto worked on stories, co-wrote songs such as the lyrics to "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" and was the original voice of animated characters such as Goofy and Pluto, Grumpy and Sleepy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and the Practical Pig in "Three Little Pigs." Disney cartoonists copied many of Pinto's facial expressions while drawing animal characters for the cartoons. He left Disney in 1937 following a fallout with Walt and Disney proceeded to reuse his old voice tracks. Meanwhile, Pinto freelanced voices and sound effects for Warner Bros. cartoons, sang for some of the Munchkins during Dorothy's arrival scenes in MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939), and also joined Max Fleischer Studios in Miami, where he did the voice of Gabby in Gulliver's Travels (1939) and the blustering of Bluto in "Popeye the Sailor" cartoons. He returned to Disney in 1941 and continued to freelance for them and on radio programs for others. He was the original Maxwell automobile on Jack Benny's show, the hiccuping horse for Dennis Day, and a variety of voices for "Amos 'n Andy." His live radio experience and contacts introduced him to the recording industry. He did several albums before encountering one of his best-known characters, Bozo the Clown.
It was 1946 when Capitol Records in Hollywood hired Alan Livingston as a writer/producer. His initial assignment was to create a children's record library, for which he came up with the soon-to-be-legendary Bozo character. He wrote and produced a popular series of storytelling record-album and illustrative read-along book sets, beginning with the October 1946 release of "Bozo at the Circus." His record-reader concept, which enabled children to read and follow a story in pictures while listening to it, was the first of its kind. The Bozo image was a composite design of Livingston's, derived from a variety of clown pictures and then given to an artist to turn into comic-book-like illustrations. Livingston then hired Pinto to portray the character. "Pinto came in," Livingston recalls, "and turned out to be a very jolly, likable fellow with the kind of warm, folksy voice I wanted. He didn't talk down to children." Not only did Livingston get a perfect Bozo voice in Pinto, he also got most of the animals and odd creatures under the sea and in outer space, all for the price of one. On some of the records, Pinto provided as many as eight other voices. The series turned out to be a smash hit for Capitol, selling over eight million albums in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The character also became a mascot for the record company and was later nicknamed "Bozo the Capitol Clown." Pinto, as Bozo, also starred in the very first Bozo television series, Bozo's Circus (1951) on KTTV-Channel 11 (CBS) in Los Angeles, made numerous guest appearances on radio and personal appearance tours all over the country. He especially enjoyed his visits to children's hospitals and orphanages, according to Pinto, "doin' my silly stuff to make them laugh."
Pinto's Bozo days came to an end by 1956, when Livingston left Capitol and Larry Harmon acquired the rights to Bozo (excluding the record-readers) in 1957. In 1958 Jayark Films Corp. began distributing Bozo limited-animation cartoons to television stations, along with the rights for each to hire its own live Bozo host. Harmon produced and provided the voice of the character in the cartoons. On January 5, 1959, Bozo returned to television with a live half-hour weeknight show on KTLA-Channel 5 in Los Angeles starring Pinto's son, Vance Colvig Jr. as the live Bozo host. Vance's portrayal and the KTLA show lasted for six years, at which time Harmon bought out his partners and continued to market the character through his Larry Harmon Pictures Corporation.
If Pinto had any dark years, they were during World War II. Four of his five sons were of eligible age and his wife felt the dread that millions of mothers felt, which may have complicated an illness that made her a semi-invalid for several years. Pinto took care of her until her death in 1950.
Throughout his life Pinto was upbeat and cheerful, convinced that laughter was the world's best medicine. "Sure, there have been kicks in the pants and occasionally an empty gut," he once said, "but those are the jolts what pushes a guy upward and onward!" His letters, though touching on his philosophy, were never serious but always funny and filled with odd typing effects, extraneous capitalization, underlining, misspellings and strange made-up words. He also lavished his letters and envelopes with outrageous cartoons and balloons filled with gags. He kept regular correspondence with clown legends Felix Adler, Emmett Kelly, Lou Jacobs and Otto Griebling, and visited "clown alley" whenever a circus came to the Los Angeles area.
In 1963 Pinto received a letter from Oregon Senator Maurine Neuberger thanking him for supporting her bill requiring warning labels on cigarette packages. It was a controversial idea at a time when nonsmoking areas were just a dream and America was blue with secondhand smoke. With lungs ravaged by a lifetime of heavy smoking, Pinto did his part to help others become aware of the problem. On October 3, 1967, Vance Debar "Pinto" Colvig died of lung cancer at the age of 75 in Woodland Hills, California.
Vance Jr. donated his and his father's memorabilia to the Southern Oregon Historical Society in Pinto's hometown of Jacksonville in 1978. Vance Jr. passed away in 1991.
In 1993, the Walt Disney Company honored Pinto Colvig as a "Disney Legend." On May 28, 2004, he was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.- Writer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Tedd Pierce was born on 12 August 1906 in Quogue, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Gulliver's Travels (1939), Super-Rabbit (1943) and The Jim Backus Show (1960). He was married to Wanda E. Reeves and Clarice Dorothy Tourelle. He died on 19 February 1972.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Dave Barry was a trailblazing stand-up comedian who began his comedy, acting and voice-over career at age 17. He played his first professional gig at New York's old Palace Theater in April of 1935. The young comedic talent (born Dave Siegel, and then changing legally to Dave Barry in the early 1940s) was the son of a furniture store owner in Brooklyn, calling himself an "amateur cartoonist and sign painter" when he made his debut in April 1935 on the radio talent show "Major Edward Bowes and the Original Amateur Hour." Bowes radio show encouraged listeners to vote for favorite acts either by calling the station in New York or sending in a postcard. The act that gained the most votes won the opportunity to go on a road tour with one of Major Bowes' touring "units," making $50 weekly plus meals. Barry was a hit with listeners, winning several contests and Major Bowes signed him to a contract for live shows. Bowes became Barry's first mentor, schooling him on showbiz and suggesting that Barry hang out by the New York docks to soak up the funny sounds and things he heard.
Barry next cut his comedic chops on the vaudeville stage, touring for almost 7 years with Major Bowes units, handling emcee chores and featured in a nightly comedy slot among a troupe of variety acts doing 35 shows a week across the 48 states, including Mexico and Canada. Constant work followed during which he played theaters nationwide with acts such as Paul Winchell, Jack Carter, George Liberace, Beverly Sills, Glen Gray, Jimmy Dorsey, and Charlie Barnet. Dave Barry was given a headline spot in Bowes unit #1 in June 1935, opening in Houston Texas and learning the showbiz ropes, surrounded by many future luminaries. It was on the road that he met beautiful singer Ginny Wayne (Ginger Seiden), who was also working the same unit. The two married while touring in 1940, garnering a standing rousing ovation from their fellow performers during a ceremony in between shows. They had their first son (Alan) while on the road in August 1941, just a few months before the attack at Pearl Harbor and the beginning of WW2.
Barry built up a reputation as a dependable stand-up comic and impersonator, entertaining troops during his military service in World War II while serving at Camp Roberts CA where he became an army sergeant in June 1944. He performed on radio often (Command Performance USO, Major Bowes, The Connee Boswell show) and while attached to the army's Special Services Unit he spent his short stint in the war doing what he did best - entertaining servicemen and women at home & overseas with luminaries such as Red Skelton, Eddie Cantor, Mary Pickford, Jimmy Durante, The Mills Brothers, Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. In 1945 he came to Hollywood landing a spot at Billy Gray's Band Box, a popular comedy club and dinner bistro on Fairfax Blvd. His drawl humor and smart impersonations scored immediately with the Band Box crowd, and Barry was held over for months. It was here that his work attracted the attention of local radio and film execs, bringing the lad plenty of radio appearances and finally a permanent berth on the Jimmy Durante radio show.
Jimmy Durante became Barry's mentor, bringing him under his wings for his 1947-1948 radio broadcasts, with Barry regularly appearing in cameos doing gags and sounds, and as "Mr Ripple," the Commissioner of Waterways. On some episodes, his six year old son Alan Barry would chime in as his youthful cherub "Trickle." Guest stars on Durante's popular show included Bob Hope, Van Johnson, Rose Marie, and Frank Morgan - the well known Wizard in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Barry also did a short lived "Hollywood Showcase" radio show with Mickey Rooney in July of 1947. All the while, Barry was also working his stage show jokes & gags - honing and testing them for bigger laughs. In December of 1948 Barry made his very first TV appearance on "Toast Of The Town" with Ed Sullivan, just as the new TV medium was about to begin its golden age.
Barry excelled at mimicry and mastered an endless stream of accents/dialects and offbeat sounds (in fact at the start of his stage work he advertised himself as an impressionist). He based his routines on the everyday happenings of "Mr. Average" -things that happen at home, problems with money, and the trials and tribulations with the wife and kids. When Barry moved to Hollywood, he sought out more cartoon voice work and signed contracts with Columbia, Warner Brothers, Disney, Republic Pictures, and Screen Gems. He was initially sought-after as an animation voice artist in the 1930's at the age of just 18, hired by the legendary Warner Bothers (Merrie Melodies) mogul Leon Schlesinger with the Hollywood themed The CooCoo Nut Grove (1936) where he voiced actor Ned Sparks, Porky's Road Race (1937) and then a year later with Disney with the star studded Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938). Barry partnered with the most creative minds of early animation, and cartoon voice work (especially celebrities) became a lucrative side gig supplementing his comedy résumé. During a 1942 Miami stand-up performance, he was doing his act at a hotel when a man from the audience (who worked for the Miami based Famous Studios) approached him at the bar after the show. He said they needed a deeply baritone voice for Popeye's arch nemesis Bluto in a series of Popeye features. Barry got the Miami cartoon job starting with Kickin' the Conga Round (1942). Ultimately Barry provided the swaggering voice for Bluto between 1942 and 1944, and worked on six Popeye features.
Barry's cartoon work grew along with his reputation, voicing more than 50 credited (and mostly uncredited) features . His most sought-after skills were foreign dialects and uncannily impersonating celebrities of the period including Groucho Marx, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, James Cagney and Clark Gable, which he did with gusto in countless Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. He also voiced Elmer Fuddstone in Pre-Hysterical Hare (1958), standing in for Arthur Q. Bryan when he was taken ill and was not able to voice him. For Looney Tunes, Dave Barry became best known for numerous appearances of Humphrey Bogart and other classic celebrities in cartoons such as "Bacall to Arms (1946)," "8 Ball Bunny (1950)" and the star studded "Hollywood Steps Out (1941)." He also voiced many nameless background characters.
Barry also performed a bevy of distinctive radio voices for the famous "Marilyn Monroe Is Getting Married" radio episode on the Edgar Bergen show, aired October 26th 1952 with Marilyn Monroe and Bergen's ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy.
Barry continued to find his sweet spot with clean but punchy jokes about the everyday guy or gal; hilarious stories about wives who can't drive straight, long-haired kids who won't get a haircut and sexy bald men like himself who get stopped by the cops after a few too many drinks. Barry's comedic stage work in Las Vegas started around 1945, just as the dessert town became a magnet for top entertainment. Starting at the newly opened El Rancho and Dessert Inn Hotels, Barry became a fixture in Vegas for over 5 decades. In these early Vegas days before the strip (with junket buses bringing in gamblers from nearby Los Angeles), Barry performed in luxurious smoke-filled showrooms with singers Marilyn Maxwell, Sunny Skylar, Betty Grable, Ethel Smith, Frank Sinatra, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, Nat 'King' Cole, Liberace and Jane Powell. During his decades in Vegas, he played at nearly every resort including The Dunes, The Stardust, The Royal Nevada, The Riviera, and what was originally known as The Last Frontier. In the 1950s he performed his impressions and fast-paced gags at the El Cortez and newly opened Flamingo opened by the infamous mobster Bugsy Siegel (no relation to Barry). While at The Flamingo, Barry performed comedy opening for soprano Tony Martin and Rose Marie.
In addition to Vegas, Barry also appeared in comedy clubs (nightery dates) across the USA: Chicago (Chez Paree), San Francisco (Bimbo 365), New York (The Paramount), Austin TX (The Paramount), Florida (The Americana) Palm Springs (The Chi Chi and Palm House), and Los Angeles (Billy Grays Band Box. The Moulin Rouge, Cocoanut Grove, Ciros).
Constant back-to-back nightclub work across the USA paired Barry with glittering names of the period including Sammy Davis Jr., Judy Garland, Della Reese, Frank Sinatra, Liberace, The Four Step Brothers, Gypsy Rose Lee and Tommy Dorsey. In June 1949 Barry was flown in for a one month engagement at the London Palladium paired with The Marx Brothers (Harpo Marx and Chico Marx).
Voice-over work, inevitably, came second to his growing vocation as a busy Vegas comedian and entertainer. In the early 1950's Barry pivoted from stage and radio to the new medium of television and garnered appearances during TV's golden age including The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950), The Jackie Gleason Show (1952), Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (1948) and appearing eight separate times on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) - including the third highly anticipated USA appearance by The Beatles in February 1964 in a prerecorded segment. He appeared in 1952 with Eddie Cantor in a Colgate Comedy Hour Maxie The Taxi sketch with the immensely popular Eddie Cantor at the time. From there he appeared as himself doing his stand up-act or skits in numerous shows including "All Star Revue (1950)," and "The Jackie Gleason Show (1952) ."
As Dave Barry's confidence grew, he was offered film roles. His first cameo role was as tough guy Eddie Steele in the 1947 picture Joe Palooka in the Knockout (1947), playing a carnival barker who gets quickly knocked off. The next year in 1948 Barry was cast as the smartly dressed (but odd) interior decorator "Mr. Ripple" in Marilyn Monroe's third feature film, Ladies of the Chorus (1948) using his distinctive gurgle voice that he was using on Durante's radio show. Other movies followed, including Playgirl (1954) with Shelley Winters where Barry played the sneezing Photographer Jonathan Hughes. Barry morphed into his hilarious role of the pianist Señor Palumbo in the popular Bowery Boys High Society (1955). For this more physically comedic role, Barry played a cross-eyed candelabra impression of Liberace, which he had been using to great effect as a stage gag.
Barry also began to get some serious roles for a variety of TV series - playing a gangster kingpin on death row in 87th Precinct (1961), a bookie in a barbershop Going My Way (1962), or as a jewel thief in M Squad (1957).
But Dave Barry's most iconic movie role landed by happenstance in 1959 with Billy Wilder's hilarious romp Some Like It Hot (1959) where he played the bespectacled "Bienstock," the manager of the all-girl band with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. It was this role that marked the pinnacle of all his work in a movie widely called one of the funniest comedies of all time,
"What is this part?" Barry asked his agent, trying out initially for a minor part in the film. "It will be four days in a great movie," the agent promised. However at the audition, director Billy Wilder watched Barry's performance and took a moment, then looked at writer I.A.L. Diamond and announced, "Its Bienstock!" Diamond agreed, "Bienstock!"
Barry called his agent and quizzically asked, "What the hell is a Bienstock?" "Dave that's four paid weeks in the movie!" his agent explained.
In 1966 Barry also made a brief cameo appearance with the legendary Elvis Presley as his manager Harry in the movie Spinout (1966). He was also heard in Roger Corman film "The Raven (1963)," making sounds for the title character and dubbing voices for Peter Lorre and Vincent Price.
On November 30, 1965 Dave Barry opened for legendary singer Judy Garland at the Sahara Congo Room for a 2 week engagement of sold out shows, backed by the 30-piece Louis Basil orchestra. In 1966 Barry was signed as the headliner for the Desert Inn's lavish musical revue "Hello America." Highlights of the Donn Arden produced Vegas show included the sinking of the Titanic, a recreation of the San Francisco earthquake, and a mid-air butterfly ballet. One of the newly hired showgirls was a young unknown actress by the name of Goldie Hawn, who was apparently fired by producer Arden after only three weeks. The long running show was popular, and when "Hello America" closed at the Crystal Room in March of 1967, it had reportedly entertained over a million people.
"I'm the kind of comic who fits here," Barry told The New York Times about his 5 decades in Vegas. "My jokes are short and punchy. I give the audience no time to think. They've been saturated with free drinks in the casino - to give them cerebral comedy would be deadly. I think the people from Keokuk Iowa want to hear something they don't hear there - something a little risqué, a little salty, but not too much."
For nearly a decade in Vegas, Dave Barry provided opening act laughs for legendary "Midnight Idol" Wayne Newton working in the early 1970's at all of the Howard Hughes owned hotels including The Sands, The Desert Inn and The Frontier. He was also a founding member of the Friars Club in Beverly Hills, and for decades roasted longtime showbiz pals like Phyllis Diller, George Jessel, Phil Silvers, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Milton Berle.
Barry continued to do stand-up well into the late 1990's, plying his craft in Las Vegas at the Comedy Store, on cruise ships and as a member of the cast of The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, a throwback to the Ziegfeld Follies replete with vaudeville acts, lavish production numbers and a bevy of statuesque over 60 showgirls in feathers and rhinestones.
Dave Barry's trademark one liners lasted until the final gags. At one of his last shows lamenting a gig on a cruise ship, Barry recalled "Some of those people were so old I didn't know whether to say hello or goodbye! The late show was at 2 o'clock. Anybody with their own teeth was overdressed."- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gus Wicke was born on 7 May 1885 in Barmen [now Wuppertal], North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was an actor, known for The 'Hyp-Nut-Tist' (1935), Greedy Humpty Dumpty (1936) and Betty Boop and Grampy (1935). He died on 7 May 1947 in Belleville, New Jersey, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
William Pennell was born on 3 March 1889. He is known for Be Kind to 'Aminals' (1935).- Music Department
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Lou Fleischer was born on 16 July 1891 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Morning, Noon and Night Club (1937). He was married to Elizabeth Harris. He died on 16 November 1985 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Everett Clark was born on 21 August 1893 in Quincy, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Service with a Smile (1937), Zula Hula (1937) and A Song a Day (1936). He was married to Lillian Tisch. He died on 12 November 1985 in Pound Ridge, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Sam Parker was born on 30 October 1906 in Sparta, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for The Fowl Ball Player (1940). He was married to Blanche Rae Parker. He died on 30 March 1986 in Eustis, Florida, USA.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Her father was an engineer and work assignments often took the young family out of the country. It was on such a business related sojourn that baby Jessica was born in Calcutta, India on St Valentine's Day 1900, joining elder siblings Nicholas, Fred, and Nadea, to complete the Dragonetti family, devout Catholics.
Orphaned by 1909, she applied herself to studies, Jessica went to the Philadelphia Girls Catholic High School, where her devout faith was nurtured by the extraordinary efforts of the Sisters of Charity, who guided the maturing Jessica in further developing her musical talents. Her education continued at Georgian Court (today Georgian Court University) in Lakewood, New Jersey. As a student, Jessica was invited to New York for singing lessons under the renowned teacher Estelle Liebling. Mother Superior cooperated by arranging school work around these trips; even granting a leave of absence to stay in New York for extended periods of time.
She met her future husband, New York businessman Nicholas Turner, at a party given by mutual friends in 1944. After a three year courtship, the couple married in 1947. A private ceremony was held at the residence of Francis Cardinal Spellman, as vows were exchanged. She had always maintained that her career took so much energy that she could not possibly consider marriage. After the marriage, her focus shifted from performing and more toward humanitarian and church activities, resulting in numerous awards and even recognition from the Pope. - Writer
- Actor
- Script and Continuity Department
Cal Howard was born on 24 March 1911 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Gulliver's Travels (1939), The Adventures of Superpup (1958) and Valentine's Day (1964). He died on 10 September 1993 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Lanny Ross was born on 19 January 1906 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Melody in Spring (1934), Yours Sincerely (1933) and College Rhythm (1934). He was married to Olive White (manager). He died on 25 April 1988 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Cecil Roy was born on 2 October 1900 in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. She was an actress, known for Tales of Tomorrow (1951), Bored of Education (1946) and Matty's Funnies with Beany and Cecil (1959). She died on 26 January 1995 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.- Bernie Fleischer was born on 10 November 1931 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Stu's Show (2006). He died on 3 November 2014 in Studio City, California, USA.
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Most of Clayton's family was in show biz, but he initially decided to go into his father's field, law. He worked his way through Fordham University as a radio actor and singer, then took a job as a law clerk. Two years later, realizing that radio was very much more lucrative a career, he changed his last name to Collyer and became a full-time actor. He was performing on every major network by the age of 32. Collyer assumed his most famous radio role in 1940, the title character in "The Adventures of Superman." Collyer used different voices for Superman and Clark Kent, while making good use of the well-known lines "This is a job for Superman!" and "Up, up, and away!" He would continue as Superman until 1949, one year before the series ended, also playing the character in animated shorts by Max Fleischer. Collyer became involved in radio game shows at about the same time. He was co-host of ABC's "Break the Bank" for five years and host of "Winner Take All." Among the few radio personalities to successfully transition into television, he hosted the TV versions of his two radio shows. In early 1950, Collyer became host of Beat the Clock (1950), which ran in prime time and daytime for the next 11 years. In late 1956, he also became the host of his biggest success, To Tell the Truth (1956). This lasted for 12 years and made his "Will the real [contestant's name] please stand up?" a part of the American lexicon. One year after his last appearance on To Tell the Truth (1956), Collyer died of a circulatory ailment at age 61.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Joan Alexander was born on 16 April 1915 in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. She was an actress, known for The New Adventures of Superman (1966), The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (1967) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). She was married to Arthur Stanton, Dr. Robert P. Crowley and John Sylvester White. She died on 21 May 2009 in New York City, New York, USA.- Julian Noa was born on 28 February 1879. He was an actor, known for Suspense (1949), Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951) and Out There (1951). He was married to Jane Salisbury. He died on 26 November 1958 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Stan Freed is known for Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) and The Devil's Sleep (1949).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Pauline Loth is known for Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941).- Writer
- Actor
- Animation Department
Carl Meyer was born on 12 March 1894 in New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941), Superman: Volcano (1942) and Superman: The Bulleteers (1942). He died on 19 March 1972 in Florida, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Kenny Gardner was born on 20 March 1913 in Lakeview, Iowa, USA. He was an actor, known for Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941), Crazy Moon (1987) and Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (1948). He was married to Elaine Lombardo. He died on 26 July 2002 in Manhasset, New York, USA.- Gwen Williams was born on 17 April 1888 in Manly, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She was an actress, known for Cards with Uncle Tom (1959), The Four Feathers (1921) and The Secret of the Moor (1919). She died on 27 May 1962 in Worthing, Sussex, England, UK.