Lou Costello
Louis Francis Cristillo aka
Lou Costello (
March 6,
1906 -
March 3,
1959), was an American
actor and
comedian best known as half of the comedy team of
Abbott and Costello, with
Bud Abbott.
Lou Costello was born Louis Francis Cristillo in
Paterson, New Jersey to an
Italian father and a mother of French and Irish descent;[
1] the family was
Catholic. A gifted athlete, he excelled in basketball and reportedly was once the New Jersey State Foul Shot champion. In 1927 he went to Hollywood to become an actor, but could only find work as a laborer or extra at
MGM and
Warner Brothers. His athletic skill led him to occasional work as a stunt man, notably in
The Trail of '98, (1927). He can also be spotted sitting ringside in the
Laurel and Hardy film
The Battle of the Century (1927). On his trip back home a year later, he was stranded in the midwest and, out of necessity, became a
burlesque comedian.
In the early 1930s, Costello crossed paths with a talented
straight man named
Bud Abbott. They formally teamed up in 1936, and performed together in burlesque shows, minstrel shows, vaudeville and movie houses.
In
1938 they received national exposure for the first time by performing on
The Kate Smith Hour, which ultimately led to the duo signing with
Universal in 1940. They filled supporting roles in their first film,
One Night in the Tropics (
1940), but stole the film with their classic routines, including "
Who's On First?". (Abbott and Costello are not, as some
urban legends have it, members of the
Baseball Hall of Fame. [
2].)
The team's breakout picture, however, was
Buck Privates which was released early in 1941. They immediately became the top-ranking comedy stars in Hollywood and fans looked forward to each of their pictures as a major event. Most movie-goers had never seen the duo's
burlesque routines, and so their dated but hilarious material seemed fresh. Many of their films cast them as bumbling servicemen such as
In The Navy and
Keep 'Em Flying. An amusing footnote to this is that the Japanese military showed these films to Japanese soldiers to demonstrate how inept American soldiers were.
The duo made over 30 films between 1940 and 1956, and were among the most popular and highest-paid entertainers in the world during World War II. Among their most popular films are
Hold That Ghost,
Who Done It?,
Pardon My Sarong,
The Time of Their Lives,
Buck Privates Come Home,
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man.
The team also appeared on radio throughout the 1940s. On October 8, 1942 the team launched their own weekly show on NBC sponsored by Camel cigarettes. They moved to
ABC (the former NBC Blue Network) from 1947-49.
In
1951, the twosome became one of the rotating hosts of
The Colgate Comedy Hour (
Eddie Cantor and
Bob Hope were among the others) and then, the following year, inaugurated their own situation comedy,
The Abbott and Costello Show. Costello owned the half-hour series, with Abbott working on salary. The show, which was loosely adapted from their radio program, ran two seasons, from
1952 to
1954, but found a new life in syndicated rerun broadcast.
In 1943, Costello had an attack of
rheumatic fever and was unable to work for a year. A tragic event shadowed his comeback. On the day Costello returned to the team's popular radio show, his infant son, Lou Jr. (nicknamed Butch) accidentally drowned in the family pool. The baby was only a few days short of his first birthday. Lou had asked his wife to keep Butch up that night so the boy could hear his Dad on the radio for the first time. Rather than cancel the broadcast, Lou said, "Wherever he is tonight, I want him to hear me," and went on with the show. No one in the audience knew of the tragedy until after the show when Bud Abbott explained the events of the day, and how the phrase "The show must go on" had been epitomized by Lou that night. People who knew Lou Costello said that he never recovered from the loss of his son.
Abbott and Costello split up in
1957, after troubles with the
Internal Revenue Service that forced both men to sell off their large homes and the rights to some of their films.
|
The crypt of Lou Costello. |
After making one unsuccessful solo film,
The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, Costello died of a
heart attack three days before his 53rd birthday in 1959. He was interred in the
Calvary Cemetery in
East Los Angeles, California..
On June 26th, 1992, the city of
Paterson, New Jersey in conjunction with the Lou Costello Memorial Association erected a statue of Lou Costello in the newly named Lou Costello Memorial Park in the city's historic downtown section. The statue had a brief appearance in a
Sopranos episode which aired on
May 21,
2006In 2005, Madison Street, in the
Sandy Hill section of Paterson, where Costello was born, was renamed Lou Costello's Place.
The centennial of Costello's birth was celebrated in Paterson on the first weekend in March, 2006.
On June 24-26 the Fort Lee Film Commission of Lou Costello's native state of New Jersey held a centennial film retrospective at the Fine Arts Theatre in Hollywood - films screened included the premiere of a digital film made by the teenagers of the present day Lou Costello Jr. Recreation Center in East Los Angeles. Also premiered was the 35mm restored print of the Lou Costello produced 1948 short film "10,000 Kids and a Cop" shot at the Lou Costello Jr. Youth Center in East Los Angeles.
*Despite the common spelling of their public names, Lou Costello was no relation to Italian-American mobster
Frank Costello, whose birth name was
Castiglia.
