Abbott & Costello
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Abbott & Costello
- Publication date
- 1895
- Topics
- Abbott & Costello
Bud Abbott
American comedian Bud Abbott was the tall, bullying member of the
popular comedy team Abbott and Costello. The son of circus employees,
Abbott entered show business as a burlesque show producer, then took to
the stage himself as straight man for a number of comedians, finally
teaming with fledgling comic Lou Costello in 1936. After working in
burlesque, in radio, and on Broadway, Abbott and Costello made their
movie debut in One Night in the Tropics (1940). Their first starring
picture was Buck Privates (1941), a box-office bonanza which catapulted
the team to "top moneymaker" status for the next 15 years; in all,
Abbott and Costello made 36 feature films. In 1951, they made their TV
debut on Colgate Comedy Hour, and later that year starred in a widely
distributed 52-week, half-hour situation comedy series, The Abbott and
Costello Show. After the team broke up in 1957, Abbott retired, but was
compelled to revive his career due to income tax problems. He appeared
solo in a supporting role on a 1961 G.E. Theatre TV drama, then made an
unsuccessful comeback attempt as straight man for comedian Candy
Candido. Abbott's last performing job was providing the voice of
"himself" in a series of 156 Abbott and Costello animated cartoons
produced for television by Hanna-Barbera in 1966.
Lou Costello
American comedian Lou Costello wasn't the most scholarly of lads growing
up in Paterson, New Jersey, although he excelled in baseball and
basketball. He won an athletic scholarship to Cornwall-on-Hudson
Military School, but left before graduation to try a performing career.
Reasoning that there'd be a lot of work for a top athlete in Hollywood,
Lou travelled westward, but was only able to secure stunt-man work,
specializing in the sort of spectacular falls that he'd still be staging
during his later starring career. Tired of working anonymously in
Hollywood, Costello decided to give stage work a try, and by the mid
'30s he'd achieved minor prominence as a burlesque comedian. What he
needed was the right straight man, and that man was Bud Abbott, with
whom Lou teamed in 1936. Abbott was satisfied in burlesque, but Costello
had bigger ambitions; it was he who actively promoted the team into
radio and Broadway. In 1940, Lou finally realized his life's ambition to
be a movie star when he and Abbott were signed by Universal Pictures.
The team's second feature, Buck Privates, launched an amazingly durable
film career; for the next ten years, Abbott and Costello were
Hollywood's biggest moneymaking team. Though no pushover in real life,
Lou became world famous for his portrayal of the hapless, trodden-upon
patsy of the conniving, bullying Abbott; his plaintive "I'm a ba-a-ad
boy" became a national catchphrase. A serious 1942 bout with rheumatic
fever kept Lou out of radio and films for a full year. On the day of his
professional return in 1943, an appalling tragedy struck Costello; his
infant son drowned in the family's backyard swimming pool. Waving off
mourners, Lou performed his comeback radio show that evening on
schedule, as funny as ever, and broke down the minute the show signed
off, while a visibly shaken Bud Abbott explained the situation to the
studio audience. Lou was never quite the same after that, though his
career flourished, surviving the occasional falling out with Bud Abbott
and unprofitable attempts to change his screen image in such films as
Little Giant and The Time of Their Lives (1946). Seldom making a
professional misstep -- he moved from films to TV and back again with
enormous success. Costello broke up permanently with Bud Abbott in 1956.
His solo dates in nightclubs and television were satisfactory, and a
starring appearance as a single in The Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock
(1959) wasn't the disaster it might have been, but Lou Costello was
basically unhappy going it alone. Still, he was thriving in show
business and seemingly had a rosy future ahead of him in early 1959;
sadly, in March of that year Lou Costello lost his lifelong battle with
his rheumatic heart and died three days before his 53rd birthday.
Lou's brother Pat Costello (Anthony Sebastian Cristillo) often doubled and did stunt work for his brother in the movies.
- Addeddate
- 2023-04-25 02:58:25
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Reviews
Reviewer:
RickyC63
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favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
April 11, 2024
Subject: Great Collection!
Subject: Great Collection!
This brought me back to Saturday morning watching Abbott & Costello movies on WPIX-11.
If you could, please correct the Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde file, which is a duplicate of The Keystone Kops movie.
If you could, please correct the Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde file, which is a duplicate of The Keystone Kops movie.
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