Al Kelly
Born
Abraham Kalish

December 18, 1896
Kreva, Russian Empire (now Belarus)
DiedSeptember 7, 1966, aged 69
New York City, U.S.
OccupationComedian
Known forDouble-talk routines

Al Kelly was the stage name of Abraham Kalish[1][2] (December 18, 1896,[nb 1][1] – September 7, 1966),[1] a U.S. vaudeville comedian. Kelly was known as a double-talk artist,[1] and went on to stooge for other comedians such as Willie Howard and Ernie Kovacs.[1] Near the end of his life, he made occasional appearances on The Soupy Sales Show when it was based in New York.

Biography

Born in Kreva, Russia, now Belarus, Kelly started in an act called Nine Crazy Kids, then started performing comic monologues.[1] Early in his career, he performed largely in the Borscht Belt.[3] When he was performing this stand-up comedy in the 1930s, he fluffed a joke so that it came out as nonsense: this got a good laugh so he made such double-talk the focus of his act and became especially known for this.[1]

On television , Kelly was featured on Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Steve Allen Show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Eddie Fisher Show, The Jack Paar Program, Candid Camera, The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson and the game show Back That Fact (1953). He was also an actor with supporting roles, such as in the film Singing in the Dark (1956) and in the TV series Mack & Myer for Hire (1963).

Kelly died at age 69[nb 1] in the early hours of September 7, 1966 of a heart attack[3] while sitting in the audience in the dining room at one of his favorite venues, The Friars' Club, in New York City, during a roast. On 8 September 1966, a crowded memorial service was conducted at Riverside Memorial Chapel (Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street), New York City.

Legacy

  • Al Kelly was referenced by Ben Katchor in a Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer strip as "Noel Kapish, the famous double-talk artist of the 1950s and 1960s"[4] (a play on both "Kalish" and "capeesh?").
  • Al Kelly was featured by Drew Friedman in his book Old Jewish Comedians (2006), "a collection of portraits of famous and forgotten Jewish comics of film and TV in their old age".
  • Al Kelly was described by Marx Brothers screenwriter Irving Brecher in 2006: "Al did double talk. That was his style. He spoke gibberish in vaudeville sketches [...] most comedians couldn't do it like Al Kelly could. He was unique."[2]

Further reading

Books

  • Al Kelly's Double Life, "Unscrambled by" Alexander Rose (biographer[nb 2]), Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc., 1966. (OCLC 1523679) (GBOOK KTGbGQAACAAJ)

Notices

  • "Al Kelly", in Billy H. Doyle (ed. Anthony Slide), The Ultimate Directory of Silent and Sound Era Performers: A Necrology of Actors and Actresses, Scarecrow Press, 1999, p. 296.
  • "Kelly, Al V.", in Eugene Michael Vazzana, Silent Film Necrology (2nd ed.), McFarland, 2001, p. 280.
  • "Al Kelly", in Frank Cullen, Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, Vol. 1, Routledge, 2007, p. 621.

Articles

  • "Al Kelly Is Dead; Famed Comedian; Double-Talk Expert Was in Show Business 52 Years", in The New York Times, 7 September 1966.
  • "Al Kelly Funeral Today", in The New York Times, 8 September 1966.
  • "Show Business Figures Hear Al Kelly Eulogized", in The New York Times, 9 September 1966.
  • "Al Kelly, Double-Talking Comic Dies in N.Y. at 67;[nb 1] Overflow Crowd at Rites", in Variety, 14 September 1966.

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Kelly's birthdate was eventually found to be in 1896; before that, he was believed to be born in 1899 (it is common in the show-biz to bill oneself younger), hence the "1899" found in older reference books, and titles such as "Dies in N.Y. at 67" in newspapers (he actually died at 69).
  2. ↑ Alexander Rose doesn't seem to be a pen name for Kelly: this person has many other books in the 1940s-1960s listed at WorldCat.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, vol. 1, Routledge, 2007, p. 621, ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2, ... Al Kelly was synonymous with double-talk.
  2. 1 2 "Books: Shmegegis of old, shmegegis of gold", by Hank Rosenfeld (interviewing Irving Brecher about Drew Friedman's book Old Jewish Comedians), in The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, 14 December 2006:
    "
    [Hank Rosenfeld:] -- Abraham Kalish?
    [Irving Brecher:] "Al Kelly. Al did double talk. That was his style. He spoke gibberish in vaudeville sketches and all the people would try to be polite.
    [Hank Rosenfeld:] -- While he mocked them?
    [Irving Brecher:] "No, not mocking them. The audience would laugh. But people in the real world he dealt with would be taken in."
    [Hank Rosenfeld:] -- Sounds like what Borat does!
    [Irving Brecher:] "Haven't seen it. But most comedians couldn't do it like Al Kelly could. He was unique."
    "
  3. 1 2 "Al Kelly Is Dead; Famed Comedian; Double-Talk Expert Was in Show Business 52 Years", in The New York Times, 7 September 1966, first paragraph of pay article: "Al Kelly, double-talking comedian, died early this morning after suffering a heart attack at the Friars Club. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital."
  4. ↑ Ben Katchor, "The Double-Talk Artist", collected in Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: Stories, 1996, ISBN 0-316-48294-3, panel 1, p. 62.

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