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Ed Wynn | |
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![]() from the film Stage Door Canteen (1943) |
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Birth name | Isaiah Edwin Leopold |
Born | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
November 9, 1886
Died | June 19, 1966 Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
(aged 79)
Medium | Vaudeville, Stand-Up |
Nationality | American |
Years active | 1903–1966 |
Influenced | Red Skelton, Daws Butler, Kevin James, Ralph Garman |
Spouse | Hilda Keenan (1914-37) (divorced) 1 child Frieda Mierse (1937-39) (divorced) Dorothy Elizabeth Nesbitt (1946-55) (divorced) |
Ed Wynn (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966) was a popular American comedian and actor noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor.[1]
Wynn began his career in vaudeville in 1903 [2][3] and was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies starting in 1914. During The Follies of 1915, W. C. Fields allegedly caught Wynn mugging for the audience under the table during his "Pool Room" routine and knocked him unconscious with his cue.[4] Wynn wrote, directed, and produced many Broadway shows in the subsequent decades, and was known for his silly costumes and props as well as for the giggly, wavering voice he developed for the 1921 musical review, The Perfect Fool.
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Ed Wynn was a Jewish-American comedian who was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, who manufactured and sold women's hats, was born in Bohemia-Czechoslovakia. His mother, of Romanian and Turkish ancestry, came from Istanbul, Turkey.[5] Wynn attended Central High School in Philadelphia until age 15.[6] He ran away from home in his teens, worked as a hat salesman and as a utility boy,[6] and eventually adapted his middle name "Edwin" into his new stage name, "Ed Wynn", to save his family the embarrassment of having a lowly comedian as a relative.
Although many gag writers later provided material for Wynn's performances in radio, television and movies, he was proud to boast that he had written every line he ever spoke during his early career as a stage performer.[citation needed]
He hosted a popular radio show, The Fire Chief for most of the 1930s, heard in North America on Tuesday nights, sponsored by Texaco gasoline. Like many former vaudeville performers who turned to radio in the same decade, the stage-trained Wynn insisted on playing for a live studio audience, doing each program as an actual stage show, using visual bits to augment his written material, and in his case, wearing a colorful costume with a red fireman's helmet. He usually bounced his gags off announcer/straight man Graham McNamee; Wynn's customary opening, "Tonight, Graham, the show's gonna be different," became one of the most familiar tag-lines of its time; a sample joke: "Graham, my uncle just bought a new second-handed car... he calls it Baby! I don't know, it won't go anyplace without a rattle!"
Wynn reprised his Fire Chief radio character in two movies, Follow the Leader (1930) and The Chief (1933). Near the height of his radio fame (1933) he founded his own short-lived radio network the Amalgamated Broadcasting System, which lasted only five weeks, nearly destroying the comedian. According to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, the failed venture left Wynn deep in debt, divorced and finally, suffering a nervous breakdown.[citation needed]
Wynn was offered the title role in MGM's 1939 screen adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, but turned it down, as did his Ziegfeld contemporary W. C. Fields. The part went to Frank Morgan.
In the 1949-50 season, Ed Wynn hosted one of the first comedy-variety television shows, on CBS, and won an Emmy Award in 1949. Buster Keaton, Lucille Ball, and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances with Wynn. This was the first CBS variety television show to originate in Los Angeles, with programs filmed via kinescope for distribution in the Midwest and East. Wynn was also a rotating host of NBC's Four Star Revue from 1950 through 1952.
After the end of Wynn's third television series, The Ed Wynn Show (a short-lived situation comedy on NBC's 1948-49 schedule), his son, actor Keenan Wynn, encouraged him to make the career change rather than retire. The comedian reluctantly began a career as a dramatic actor in television and movies. Father and son appeared in three productions, the first of which was the 1956 Playhouse 90 broadcast of Rod Serling's play Requiem for a Heavyweight. Ed was terrified of straight acting and kept goofing his lines in rehearsal. When the producers wanted to fire him, star Jack Palance said he would quit if they fired Ed. (However, unbeknownst to Wynn, supporting player Ned Glass was his secret understudy in case something did happen before air time.) On live broadcast night, Wynn surprised everyone with his pitch-perfect performance, and his quick ad libs to cover his mistakes. A dramatization of what happened during the production was later staged as an April 1960 Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse episode, "The Man In the Funny Suit", starring both senior and junior Wynns, with key figures involved in the original production also portraying themselves. Ed and his son also worked together in the Jose Ferrer film The Great Man, with Ed again proving his unexpected skills in drama.
Requiem established Wynn as serious dramatic actor who could easily hold his own with the best. His role in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Also in 1959, Wynn appeared on Serling's TV series The Twilight Zone in "One for the Angels". Serling, a longtime admirer, had written that episode especially for him, and Wynn later starred in the episode "Ninety Years Without Slumbering". For the rest of his life, Ed skillfully moved between comic and dramatic roles. He appeared in feature films and anthology television, endearing himself to new generations of fans.
Wynn had been caricatured in 1933 in the Merrie Melodies cartoon short Shuffle Off to Buffalo, and as a pot of jam in the 1934 Betty Boop short Betty in Blunderland.
He appeared as the Fairy Godfather in Jerry Lewis' Cinderfella. His performance as Paul Beaseley in the 1958 film The Great Man earned him nominations for a "Best Supporting Actor" Golden Globe Award and a "Best Foreign Actor" BAFTA Award. The following year saw him receive his first (and only) nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Mr. Dussell in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Six years later he would also appear in the epic motion picture masterpiece The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Wynn provided the voice of the Mad Hatter in Walt Disney's film, Alice in Wonderland, but many baby boomer children remember him most fondly for his brief appearances as The Toymaker alongside Mouseketeer Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands in Walt Disney's Babes in Toyland released in 1961.
Possibly his best-remembered film appearance, though, was as Uncle Albert in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964). His segment involved the eccentric man floating around just beneath the ceiling in uncontrollable mirth, singing "I Love to Laugh" and was one of the film's highlights.
Re-teaming with the Disney team the following year, in That Darn Cat! (1965) featuring Dean Jones, Wynn filled out the character of Mr. Hofstedder, the watch jeweler with his bumbling charm. His final performance, as Rufus in Walt Disney's The Gnome-Mobile was released a few months after his death.
In addition to Disney films, Wynn was also a popular character in the Disneyland production The Golden Horseshoe Review.
Wynn died June 19, 1966 in Beverly Hills, California of throat cancer,[6] aged 79. He was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, and his gravestone reads "Dear God, Thanks... Ed Wynn".
The distinctive voice which Wynn created for his "Perfect Fool" character has remained much imitated. Hanna-Barbera's Wally Gator's voice, performed by Daws Butler, was an impersonation of the Perfect Fool, as was Paul Frees's Captain Peter Peachfuzz character in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Other notable characters inspired by Wynn include: Terrytoons' Gandy Goose, Doctor Blinky in H.R. Pufnstuf, Mayor McCheese in commercials for "McDonaldland", and Multo in the PBS animated series Zula Patrol. He is frequently imitated by Ralph Garman of the "Hollywood Babble-On" podcast on Kevin Smith's SModcast network.
Those Calloways (1965)
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ed Wynn |
Awards and achievements | ||
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Preceded by none |
Emmy Award for Best Live Show for The Ed Wynn Show 1950 |
Succeeded by none |
Man are a rock band from South Wales whose style is a mixture of West Coast psychedelia, progressive rock, blues and pub rock. Formed in 1968 as a reincarnation of Welsh rock harmony group ‘’The Bystanders’’, Man are renowned for the extended jams in their live performances.
Man evolved out of The Bystanders, a successful close harmony pop group from Merthyr Tydfil who played numerous club residencies in Wales, often playing several clubs a night. The Bystanders issued eight singles, including "98.6" (#45 in UK Singles Chart, in February 1967) which featured in the 2009 film, The Boat That Rocked (although Keith's version was the bigger hit, reaching No. 24 in the UK) and "When Jesamine Goes", written by their manager Ronnie Scott and Marty Wilde under the pseudonyms of Frere Manston and Jack Gellar, which was later covered by The Casuals as "Jesamine" and got to No. 2 in the UK Chart. They also recorded sessions of cover versions for the BBC as rules restricting needle time required "live" performances between the records during the 1960s; becoming regulars on the ’’Jimmy Young Show’’, "The David Symonds Show" and others.
Maná are a Mexican rock band from Guadalajara, Jalisco. The group's current line-up consists of vocalist/guitarist Fher Olvera, drummer Alex González, guitarist Sergio Vallín, and bassist Juan Calleros. Maná has earned four Grammy Awards, seven Latin Grammy Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards Latin America, six Premios Juventud awards, fourteen Billboard Latin Music Awards and fifteen Premios Lo Nuestro awards. It is considered by many as the most influential and successful Latin American band of all time with over 40 million albums sold worldwide.
Maná has topped the all-time lists in much of Latin America and in their native Mexico, where they set landmarks in record sales and concert attendances. The band formed in 1986 and released its first album, Falta Amor, in 1990. In 1992, the group released ¿Dónde Jugarán Los Niños?, which sold more than 8 million copies worldwide, becoming the best selling Spanish-language rock album of all time. After several lineup changes, the group released Cuando los Ángeles Lloran (1995), which is noted for its stylistic departure from the band's previous work. Maná followed with Sueños Líquidos (1997), Revolución de Amor (2002), and Amar es Combatir (2007), which continued the group's success. The band followed up with Drama y Luz in April 2011. Their most recent album is "Cama Incendiada", which was released in early 2015.
1: Man 2: Band is a live double album by the Norwegian singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and performer Jarle Bernhoft, recorded in 2009 and released in 2010.
Source: Gubemusic
A one-man band or one-woman band is a musician who plays a number of instruments simultaneously using their hands, feet, limbs, and various mechanical and/or electronic contraptions. The simplest type of "one-person band" — a singer accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar and harmonica mounted in a metal "harp rack" below the mouth — is often used by buskers. More complicated setups may include wind instruments strapped around the neck, a large bass drum mounted on the musician's back with a beater which is connected to a foot pedal, cymbals strapped between the knees or triggered by a pedal mechanism, tambourines and maracas tied to the limbs, and a stringed instrument strapped over the shoulders (e.g., a banjo, ukulele or guitar). Since the development of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) in the 1980s, musicians have also incorporated chest-mounted MIDI drum pads, foot-mounted electronic drum triggers, and electronic pedal keyboards into their set-ups.
One Man Band, also known as London and Swinging London is an unfinished short film made by Orson Welles between 1968 and 1971. The film started life as a part of a 90-minute TV special for CBS, entitled Orson's Bag, consisting of Welles' 40-minute condensation of The Merchant of Venice, and assorted sketches around Europe. This was abandoned in 1969 when CBS withdrew their funding over Welles' long-running disputes with US authorities regarding his tax status, he continued to fashion the footage in his own style.
The film consists of five segments, all of them comic: Churchill, Swinging London, Four Clubmen, Stately Homes and Tailors.
The first segment is filmed entirely in silhouette. Welles plays Winston Churchill fielding press questions and then exchanging bon mots with Nancy Astor (Oja Kodar). Each line spoken by Churchill is a well-known witticism commonly attributed to him.
The longest segment of the film (9 mins) has a bowler-hatted reporter (Tim Brooke-Taylor) wandering through "Swinging London", searching for Carnaby Street with limited success. Most of the supporting roles are played by Welles in a variety of disguises: a British policeman, a Morris dancer, an old lady selling "dirty postcards", a Chinaman luring customers into a strip club, and the omnipresent one-man band. This segment is noteworthy for what reviewers have called its "Pythonesque" style - which is significant as it was filmed before Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired in October 1969. A shortened, not restored version of Swinging London appeared in the documentary Orson Welles: One-Man Band on the 2005 Criterion DVD of F for Fake.
Between The Minds is the debut album by solo artist Jack Savoretti, released on 5 March 2007. It charted at #70 in the UK Albums Chart and includes the singles "Without", "Dreamers", "Between the Minds", and "Dr Frankenstein".
On 31 March 2008, a double-CD version of the album was released in the UK, charting at #195 in the UK Albums Chart. The second disc contains some of the original albums' tracks and additional songs in acoustic and live versions and includes the double A-side single "Gypsy Love"/"One Man Band".
To date the album has spent a total of 6 weeks in the UK Albums Chart, selling 4,603 copies.
Ev'rybody knows down Ladbroke Grove
You have to leap across the street
You can lose your life under a taxi cab
You gotta have eyes in your feet
You find a nice soft corner and you sit right down
Take up your guitar and play
Then the police come and say move along
So you move along all day.
I'm a one man band
Nobody cares or understands.
Is there anybody out there who could lend a hand
To my one man band?
For three days now I haven't eaten at all
I must be getting so thin
Soon my cap won't be large enough
To drop a half a crown in.
So hey
there
Mister
don't you look so sad
Don't look so ill at ease
I can play you any song you choose
To cheer up the life you lead.
I'm a one man band
. . .
And nobody hears the minstrel boy
As he sings his tale of woe
Nobody sees him disappear
And nobody sees him go.
So hey
there
Mister
don't you look so sad
. . .
I'm a one man band
. . .
look at the rain falling.