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days later he was making $40 a week as one of Edwards’ singing newsboys at the Palace—then, the goal of every old trouper. “I started at the top,” says Phil. “And from then on it was down, down, down!” It wasn’t really as bad as all that. No act could play the Palace forever, and after “The School Days Review” completed its run, Phil went on the Silvers, Frances Langford (I.), Pat¬ sy Kelly in 'Hit Parade of 1941.' ◄ Phil Silvers burlesqued his burlesque background in show, 'Top Banana.' road with Edwards. Six months later he was earning $150 a week as the brat in a vaudeville a 9 t. In the de¬ pression years he played the borscht circuit in the Catskill Mountains and made his debut in bvu'lesque. Burlesque comedians in the 'Thirties were used to fill in the gaps between appearances by the “beauties.” But Phil was funny enough to surmount this somewhat discouraging obstacle. Within a couple of months he had been hit over the head with more rolled-up newspapers than any other comic in burlesque and had dodged a huge crop of ripe fruit. But by this time he had developed a style of comedy that made him unique in his medium. He wore the floppy pants of his contemporaries, but shunned their techniques. To the stock gag-lines of burlesque, he added an odd twist of pseudo-gentility. After loosing a par¬ ticularly raw joke, he would lean over the footlights and whisper confiden¬ tially to his audience: “I learned that one at the Theater Guild.” In burlesque, this was refreshing. 6