We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
86 Wednesday, May ?9, 1946 pen* on N Born William Abbott under a circus tent in Asbury Park, ISew Jersey, lie was the son of a circus advance man and a bareback rider. His first job was in Coney Island's Dreamland Park where he did a kid-prank in the Crystal Maze. When the customers would gel lost in the maze, Abbott would appear and lisp: "Are you lost, mister? Ill take you outside for a dime." At sixteen Abbott occupied the box office of a Brooklyn burlesque, theater. He hud just got this job ivhen he walked into a waterfront cafe and woke up to find himself stoking coal on a Norwegian freighter bound for its home [tort. Back in Brooklyn he re-entered the box office field, and later with his brother operated theaters in six cities. One night in a Pennsylvania town he was rushed on stage to replace an ailing comic. He never left the stage. In 1936 he joined a sad-faced little clown named I Am Costello in a Minsky burlesque unit in Chicago. ► In January, 1938, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were doing a five-a-day act at Loew's State Theater on Broad- way. Ted Collins, Kate Smith's business manager, was in the audience and spotted them. They appeared on the Kate Smith Hour. Soon they were regularly engaged on this show. In July, 1940. they moved to NBC as a summer replacement for Fred Allen. The following April they began a regular spot on the Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy show. In October, 1942, under the sponsorship of Camel Cigarettes, they began their own show on NBC. It im- mediately became one of the top Hooper-rated shows. Back of their fun-facade, Abbott and Costello take life seriously. They pride themselves that in all their years in burlesque they never used a profane word. Concerned with the growing juvenile delinquency problem, they have es- • tablished a national youth-serving agency to promote the AMERICA'S NO. I NETWORK