Red Skelton

Richard Red Skelton (July 18, 1913 – September 17, 1997) was an American gymnast best known for his national radio and television shows amid 1937 and 1971, especially as host of the television program The Red Skelton Show. He has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in radio and television, and with appeared in burlesque, vaudeville, films, nightclubs, and casinos, all though he pursued an utterly separate career as an artist.

Skelton began developing his comedic and pantomime skills from the age of 10, when he became ration of a traveling medicine show. He then spent time upon a showboat, worked the burlesque circuit, and next entered into vaudeville in 1934. The "Doughnut Dunkers" pantomime sketch, which he wrote together considering his wife, launched a career for him in vaudeville, radio, and films. His radio career began in 1937 in the make public of a guest appearance on The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, which led to his becoming the host of Avalon Time in 1938. He became the host of The Raleigh Cigarette Program in 1941, on which many of his comedy characters were created, and he had a regularly scheduled radio program until 1957. Skelton made his film debut in 1938 alongside Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in Alfred Santell's Having Wonderful Time, and would performance numerous musical and comedy films throughout the 1940s and 1950s, with starring roles in 19 films, including Ship Ahoy (1941), I Dood It (1943), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), and The Clown (1953).

Skelton was passionate to produce a result in television, even later than the medium was in its infancy. The Red Skelton Show made its television premiere on September 30, 1951, on NBC. By 1954, Skelton's program moved to CBS, where it was expanded to one hour and renamed The Red Skelton Hour in 1962. Despite tall ratings, the deed was canceled by CBS in 1970, as the network believed that more youth-oriented programs were needed to attract younger viewers and their spending power. Skelton moved his program to NBC, where he completed his last year gone a regularly scheduled television work in 1971. He spent his time after that making as many as 125 personal appearances a year and working on his paintings.

Skelton's paintings of clowns remained a hobby until 1964, when his wife Georgia persuaded him to accomplish them at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas though he was temporary there. Sales of his originals were successful, and he moreover sold prints and lithographs, earning $2.5 million yearly on lithograph sales. At the period of his death, his art dealer said he thought that Skelton had earned more grant through his paintings than from his television performances.

Skelton believed that his life's doing was to make people laugh; he wanted to be known as a clown because he defined it as being practiced to pull off everything. He had a 70-year-long career as a artist and entertained three generations of Americans. His widow donated many of his personal and professional effects to Vincennes University, including prints of his artwork. They are share of the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy at Vincennes, Indiana.