Related Research Articles
Abbott and Costello were an American comedy duo composed of comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, whose work in radio, film, and television made them the most popular comedy team of the 1940s and 1950s, and the highest-paid entertainers in the world during the Second World War. Their patter routine "Who's on First?" is considered one of the greatest comedy routines of all time, a version of which appears in their 1945 film The Naughty Nineties.
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In is an American sketch comedy television program which ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to March 12, 1973, on the NBC television network, hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It originally aired as a one-time special on September 9, 1967, and was such a success that it was brought back as a series, replacing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on Mondays at 8 pm (ET). It quickly became the most popular television show in the United States.
Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham was an African American entertainer. Though best known as a comedian, Markham was also a singer, dancer, and actor. His nickname came from a stage routine, in which he declared himself to be "Sweet Poppa Pigmeat". He was sometimes credited in films as Pigmeat "Alamo" Markham.
Danny Thomas was an American actor, singer, nightclub comedian, producer, and philanthropist. He created and starred in the Danny Thomas Show. In addition to guest roles on many of the comedy, talk, and musical variety programs of his time, his legacy includes a lifelong dedication to fundraising for charity. Most notably, he was the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, a leading center in pediatric medicine with a focus on pediatric cancer. St. Jude now has affiliate hospitals in eight other American cities as of early 2020.
Mark Alexander Knox, better known as Flex Alexander or Flex, is an American actor, comedian and dancer. He began his career while appearing on numerous of television sitcoms before portraying single father Flex Washington on the UPN sitcom One on One (2001-2006). Alexander also had a number of roles in many films including Modern Vampires (1998), The Force (1999), Out Cold (2001), Book of Love: The Definitive Reason Why Men Are Dogs (2002), Gas (2004), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and Trigger (2020).
The Hollywood Palace is an hourlong American television variety show broadcast Saturday nights on ABC from January 4, 1964, to February 7, 1970. Titled The Saturday Night Hollywood Palace for its first few weeks, it began as a midseason replacement for The Jerry Lewis Show, another variety show, which lasted only three months.
Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though about a third of them had Black owners, including the recently restored Morton Theater in Athens, Georgia, originally operated by "Pinky" Monroe Morton, and Douglass Theatre in Macon, Georgia owned and operated by Charles Henry Douglass. Theater owners booked jazz and blues musicians and singers, comedians, and other performers, including the classically trained, such as operatic soprano Sissieretta Jones, known as "The Black Patti", for black audiences.
Tim Moore was an American vaudevillian and comic actor of the first half of the 20th century. He gained his greatest recognition in the starring role of George "Kingfish" Stevens in the CBS TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show. He proudly stated, "I've made it a point never to tell a joke on stage that I couldn't tell in front of my mother."
The Mother of Us All is a two-act opera composed by Virgil Thomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Thomson and Stein met in 1945 to begin the writing process, almost twenty years after their first collaborative project, the opera Four Saints in Three Acts. Stein wrote the libretto in the winter of 1945–46 before sending it to Thomson in March. After Stein's death in July, Thomson began working on the score, which he finished within just a few months. The opera centers around Susan B. Anthony, one of the major figures in the fight for women's suffrage in the United States, with a supporting cast of characters both fictional and based on other historical figures. Thomson famously described the work as a "pageant".
Oui Be Negroes is an African-American improvisational sketch comedy ensemble, founded by Artistic Director Shaun Landry and Director Hans Summers. They worked together for many years in Chicago with the Underground Theatre Conspiracy, and had thrown around the idea of an African-American-driven sketch and improvisational comedy troupe, which would be geared specifically toward social and political humor.
Lydia Thompson, was an English dancer, comedian, actor and theatrical producer.
Richard Smith, also known as Dick Smith, was a screenwriter, actor, and film director. Smith was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and became a comedian active in the vaudeville era. He met his wife Alice Howell in 1910 and the two performed together as Howell and Howell. After working under direction of Mack Sennett at the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, Smith moved to Los Angeles, California. Smith and his wife starred in reels together produced by L-KO Kompany.
American burlesque is a genre of variety show derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall, and minstrel shows. Burlesque became popular in the United States in the late 1860s and slowly evolved to feature ribald comedy and female nudity. By the late 1920s, the striptease element overshadowed the comedy and subjected burlesque to extensive local legislation. Burlesque gradually lost its popularity, beginning in the 1940s. A number of producers sought to capitalize on nostalgia for the entertainment by recreating burlesque on the stage and in Hollywood films from the 1930s to the 1960s. There has been a resurgence of interest in this format since the 1990s.
Varietease is a 1954 American burlesque film and the first such directed by Irving Klaw. According to its plot, the iconic pin-up model Bettie Page performs a burlesque show alongside Lili St. Cyr, Chris La Chris, Vicki Lynn, Bobby Shields, and others.
Joel Adams, sometimes credited as Doctor Jo Jo Adams, was an American jump blues singer, comedian, dancer, and MC, who recorded in the 1940s and 1950s.
Jack Cameron, also known as Jack Kammerer, was an American actor, singer, and acrobatic comedian whose career spanned almost five decades. He appeared in vaudeville, burlesque, film, radio, and television. Cameron was best known for his vaudeville performances, first as part of the Kammerer & Howland musical comedy act, and later as a principal comedian on the Keith-Albee circuit. He appeared in several motion pictures and could be heard on WPRO (AM) radio as the “Singing Salesman.”
Steve Gallon, Jr., known as Wildman Steve, was an American comic entertainer, radio personality, promoter, MC and recording artist.
Lottie "The Body"Tatum-Graves-Claiborne was an American burlesque dancer who performed from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. She was given the nickname "Lottie the Body" when she was a teenager working in modeling. She also became known as the "Black Gypsy Rose Lee" and the "Gypsy Rose Lee of Detroit." Born and raised in New York, her career in burlesque began in San Francisco, and later she moved to Detroit. Lottie was renowned for her support of other exotic dancers, musicians, and entertainers. During her lengthy career, she worked throughout the U.S. and in numerous other countries, performing with many of the great singers, comedians, musicians, and dancers of her era.
Gonzell White, also written Gonzelle White, was an American jazz, blues, and vaudeville performer in the United States.
References
- ↑ Allmovie/New York Times overview
- ↑ “Burlesque in Harlem,” Wild Realm Reviews
- ↑ Weldon, Michael J. “The Psychotronic Video Guide.”1996, St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 0-312-13149-6
