Red Skelton

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July 18, 1913

September 17, 1997 in Palm Springs, California, U.S. of pneumonia.

Richard Bernard Skelton

Edna Marie Stilwell (1931-1943)

Georgia Davis (1945-1971)

Lothian Toland (1973-1997)

Actor:

Freddie the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner (1981) (TV)

Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) (TV) (voice)

The Red Skelton Hour (550 episodes, 1951-1971)

Swing Out, Sweet Land (1970) (TV)

Clown Alley (1966) (TV)

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes (1965)

"The Garry Moore Show" (1 episode, 1962)

CBS Fall Preview Special: Seven Wonderful Nights (1961) (TV)

Red Skelton Timex Special (1960) (TV)

Ocean's Eleven (1960)

"Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" (1 episode, 1960)

The Red Skelton Chevy Special (1959) (TV)

"The Milton Berle Show" (1 episode, 1958)

Public Pigeon No. One (1957)

"Playhouse 90" (1 episode, 1956)

Around The World in 80 Days (1956)

"Shower of Stars" (3 episodes, 1955)

"Climax!" (1 episode, 1955)

"Red Skelton Revue" (5 episodes, 1954)

Susan Slept Here (1954) (uncredited)

"The Jackie Gleason Show" (1 episode, 1954)

The Great Diamond Robbery (1954)

Half a Hero (1953)

The Clown (1953)

Lovely to Look at (1952)

Texas Carnival (1951)

Excuse My Dust (1951)

Watch the Birdie (1950)

The Fuller Brush Girl (1950) (uncredited)

Duchess of Idaho (1950) (uncredited)

Three Little Words (1950)

The Yellow Cab Man (1950)

Neptune's Daughter (1949)

A Southern Yankee (1948)

The Fuller Brush Man (1948)

Merton of the Movies (1947)

A Crime Does Not Pay Subject: The Luckiest Guy in the World (1947) (voice) (uncredited)

The Show-Off (1946)

Ziegfeld Follies (1945)

Bathing Beauty (1944)

Whistling in Brooklyn (1943)

I Dood It (1943)

Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)

Whistling in Dixie (1942)

Panama Hattie (1942)

Maisie Gets Her Man (1942)

Ship Ahoy (1942)

Lady Be Good (1941)

Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day (1941)

Whistling in the Dark (1941)

The People vs. Dr. Kildare (1941)

Flight Command (1940)

Seeing Red (1939)

The Broadway Buckaroo (1939)

Having Wonderful Time (1938)

Writer:

Red Skelton: A Royal Command Performance (1984) (TV) (writer)

Freddie the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner (1981) (TV) (story)

The Red Skelton Hour (252 episodes, 1951-1971)

Clown Alley (1966) (TV) (writer)

Red Skelton Timex Special (1960) (TV) (writer)

The Red Skelton Chevy Special (1959) (TV) (writer)

Ziegfeld Follies (1945) (segment "When Television Comes")

The Broadway Buckaroo (1939) (additional dialogue)

Producer:

The Red Skelton Hour (producer) (11 episodes, 1951-1956)

As Himself:

Pioneers of Primetime (1995) (TV)

Inside the Dream Factory (1995) (TV)

The First Annual Comedy Hall of Fame (1993) (TV)

The 3rd Annual American Comedy Awards (1989) (TV)

The 38th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards 1986 (TV)

Unrehearsed Antics of the Stars (1984) (TV)

Red Skelton: A Royal Command Performance (1984) (TV)

Sinatra: The First 40 Years (1980) (TV)

Good Morning America (1 episode, 1979)

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (2 episodes, 1971-1978)

General Electric's All-Star Anniversary (1978) (TV)

Happy Birthday, Bob (1978) (TV)

"The Mike Douglas Show" (5 episodes, 1977)

The 49th Annual Academy Awards 1977 (TV)

CBS Salutes Lucy: The First 25 Years (1976) (TV)

Monsanto Night Presents Walt Disney's America on Parade (1976) (TV)

Jack Benny's Twentieth Anniversary Special (1970) (TV)

The Ed Sullivan Show (8 episodes, 1955-1969)

The Red Skelton Hour (65 episodes, 1951-1968)

"The Bob Braun Show" (1967) TV series (1967-1984)

"The Jonathan Winters Show" (1 episode, 1967)

"Clown Alley" (1 episode, 1966)

"The Jack Paar Tonight Show" (1 episode, 1961)

"The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" (1 episode, 1960)

"What's My Line?" (2 episodes, 1954-1960)

"The Steve Allen Plymouth Show" (2 episodes, 1958-1959)

"Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" (1 episode, 1959)

"The Garry Moore Show" (2 episodes, 1958-1959)

"The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" (1 episode, 1959)

"The Jack Benny Program" (2 episodes, 1956-1958)

"This Is Your Life" (1 episode, 1957)

"Playhouse 90" (1 episode, 1956)

"The Herb Shriner Show" (1 episode, 1956)

"Shower of Stars" (2 episodes, 1955-1956)

"Ford Star Jubilee" (1 episode, 1955)

"Red Skelton Revue" (2 episodes, 1954)

Hollywood Goes to War (1954)

Some of the Best (1949) (uncredited)

Week End in Hollywood (1947)

Radio Bugs (1944) (voice)

Thousands Cheer (1943)

American Comedy Awards

1989 Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy

Emmy Awards

1986 Won Governor's Award

1963 Nominated Emmy Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy for: "The Red Skelton Hour" (1951)

1962 Nominated Emmy Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy for: "The Red Skelton Hour" (1951)

1961 Won Emmy Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy for: "The Red Skelton Hour" (1951)

1957 Nominated Emmy Best Single Performance by an Actor for: "Playhouse 90" (1956) For episode "The Big Slide"

1952 Won Emmy Best Comedian or Comedienne

Golden Globes

1978 Won Cecil B. DeMille Award

1959 Won Golden Globe Best TV Show for: "The Red Skelton Hour" (1951)

Screen Actors Guild Awards

1988 Life Achievement Award

Walk of Fame (Hollywood)

Star on the Walk of Fame Television At 6650 Hollywood Blvd.

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A success on stage, radio, film, and TV, Red Skelton was the son of a circus clown who died two months before his birth. He grew up poor and worked selling newspapers on street corners. His red hair gave him the nickname "Red." By the age of fifteen he had left home and begun his professional career, working such disparate venues as medicine shows, minstrel shows, vaudeville, burlesque, showboats, and circuses.

Skelton had his first professional break on the radio in The Rudy Vallee Show, making his debut in 1937, and becoming a regular on the NBC show Avalon Time in 1939. The network gave him his own program in 1941, and he remained with NBC until 1949, when he moved to CBS.

Skelton was signed to MGM in 1940 and appeared in a variety of comedies and musicals. He starred in a series of comedy-mysteries: Whistling in the Dark (1941), Whistling in Dixie (1942), and Whistling in Brooklyn (1943). The musicals include Lady Be Good (1941), Panama Hattie (1942), Du Barry Was a Lady (1943), and Ziegfeld Follies (1946).

By the mid-1950s, Skelton was more or less exclusively a TV star. CBS had moved him to the new medium in 1951, and he remained on the air for the next 20 years. He featured a number of recurrent characters, including the tramp Freddy the Freeloader, the wiseacre child Junior, the con artist San Fernando Red, and the country hick Clem. Skelton also frequently performed pantomime, at which he excelled. In the 1970s he retired from performing and developed a successful second career as a painter, particularly of clowns. His paintings fetched prices of more than $80,000. In the 1980s Skelton returned to live performances and appeared at New York's Carnegie Hall.

Red Skelton died near his Anza, California home, at Eisenhower Medical Center, in Rancho Mirage, California, of pneumonia, on September 17, 1997. He was 84. Skelton was interred in the Skelton Family tomb in The Great Mausoleum's Sanctuary of Benediction, private room, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, California. He rests with his beloved son Richard Jr., who died in 1958. Skelton was survived by his widow Lothian Toland-Skelton, and his daughter Valentina Marie Skelton-Alonso (by his second wife Georgia), and granddaughter Sabrina Maureen Alonso.

"My mother told me something I've never forgotten: 'Don't take life too seriously, son, you don't come out of it alive anyway."

"All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner."

"I think most of today's comedians are victims of laughter...they get nervous and resort to an insult or a four-letter word for a quick, cheap laugh. That goes on night after night until the whole act is cheapened. But that doesn't last. Usually, a couple of years later they are remembered only as the old what's-his-name who used all the dirty words."

Clowns were his lifelong trademark. His clown paintings have sold for upwards of $80,000.

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Benediction.

Served in the U.S. Army during World War Two (1944-1945).

One of Red's writers filled in for him one night when he took at serious fall injuring himself. That writer's name was Johnny Carson.

In 1960 he purchased the old Charles Chaplin Studios on La Brea ave.

Although famous for his "drunk" comedy sketches, he never drank and was, in fact, allergic to alcohol.