Red skelton net worth
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From dunking doughnuts on the vaudeville stage to performing Clem Kadiddlehopper and Freddy the Freeloader on living room television sets across the nation, Red Skelton entertained generations of Americans with his physical comedy style. Born Richard Bernard Skelton in Vincennes in 1913, Red used entertainment as a way to escape his impoverished and rough-and-tumble home life. By 16, Red parlayed his native talent for buffoonery into a job touring with Vincennes entertainer Clarence Stout in 1929 and into radio appearances on the Rudy Vallee Varieties program in 1937.
Beginning in 1938 with Having Wonderful Time, Red Skelton appeared in more than 30 MGM films during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1941, Red premiered his own radio show, The Raleigh Cigarette Program. Skelton was drafted in March 1944, and the popular radio show was discontinued. Red shipped overseas to serve with an Army entertainment unit as a private. His hectic military and entertainment schedule led to a nervous breakdown and a three-month recovery in a military hospital. Following his discharge from the serv
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Red Skelton Bio
Red Skelton, American (1913 - 1997)
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American entertainer best known for being a national radio and television comedian between 1937 and 1971. Skelton, who has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, began his show business career in his teens as a circus clown and continued on vaudeville and Broadway and in films, radio, TV, nightclubs, and casinos, all while he pursued an entirely separate career as an artist.
A vaudeville and burlesque performer who worked his way up from the bottom of the rung clubs and show boats to play the Paramount Theatre in NYC, Red Skelton entered films in 1938 and went on to appear in some two dozen musicals and comedies through the 1940s, mostly for MGM. Skelton, who had his own radio show from 1941-53, embraced TV in 1950 and gained his greatest fame there, showcasing his gift for pantomime and his memorable characterizations, such as Freddy the Freeloader, on the long-running "The Red Skelton Show" which ran on NBC from 1951-53, then on CBS from 1953-70, and finally on NBC for its last year 1970-7
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About
Born in Vincennes, Indiana, Richard (Red) Skelton was the son of a Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus clown named Joseph who died in 1913 shortly before the birth of his son. Red Skelton himself got one of his earliest tastes of show business with the same circus as a teenager. Before that, however, he had been given the show business bug at age ten by entertainer Ed Wynn, who spotted him selling newspapers in front of the Pantheon Theatre, in Vincennes, Indiana, trying to help his family. After buying every newspaper in Red Skelton's stock, Wynn took the boy backstage and introduced him to every member of the show with which he was traveling. By age 15, Red Skelton had hit the road full-time as an entertainer, working everywhere
from medicine shows and vaudeville to burlesque, showboats,
minstrel shows and circuses.
Red Skelton was a man of deep faith and staunch patriotic fervor, extremely proud of his 58 year membersh
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