LET THOSE THAT PLAY YOUR CLOWNS…

Robert L. Mills writing about a sketch he wrote for Bob Hope and George Gobel, who plays a Polish American Football player…

"Since I know not a word of Polish, while writing the dialog, I came up with what I thought sounded like passable phrases. George, being the consummate pro he was, didn’t make up his own gibberish but memorized mine! That’s the ultimate example of an actor’s faithfulness to the written word. Would that they were all like that."

Hear, hear!

Perhaps you have heard of Bob Hope, but George Gobel is not as well-known. He was born in Chicago in 1919, and started in show business at the age of eleven, singing on radio as ‘Little George Gobel’. Later, he became ‘Lonesome George’, guitarist and singer of cowboy ballads. From 1954 to 1960 he starred in NBC’s ‘The George Gobel Show’, for which he won an Emmy in 1955.

His films include, ‘The Birds and the Bees’ (1956), and ‘I Married a Woman’ - with Diana Dors! (1958)

He died at the age of 71, in 1991.

Here is George Gobel on the ‘Liberace Show’, singing with the ‘chromium-plated’ pianist, and Trisha Noble. It’s a good number, which I think I will try and work into a pantomime.