Red Skelton: OldJokes Never Die

By Frank LoveceWO SEAGLILLS, Gertrude and Heath-eliff. "They're down on the beach,"Red Skelton begins, mussing up hissilver wisps of hair and miming a pairof stubby wittgs. "And she says, 'You

been drinkin' that beer again.'"He says, 'No, I haven't.'"She says, 'Well, you're drunk now.'"He says, 'I'm not drunk, you're dnrnk.'"She says, 'I am not.''TIe says, 'You see a lot of red, blue, pink

pelicans running around on the beach?'"She says,'No.''TIe says, 'I told you you was drunk - the

beach is lousy with 'em'!"An enchanted crowd of reporters - some as

old that joke - laughed appreciatively. Theycouldn't not. Because at the congenial, practi-cally huggable press conference last week an-nouncing Skelton's Carnegie Hall concert to-night, it was clear that in the venerabilitystakes, the comedian and Carnegie run neckand neck.

The 77-year-old clown of vaudeville, radio,television, burlesque, the circus and minstreland medicine shows still performs about 75concerts a.year. Many of his jokes seem asquaint as a country quilt, and his pantomimeisn't exactly Mummenshanz, and, other per-formers with this material wouldn't even getbooked these days at county fairs. But Skel-

people will laugh - or he might pull off p4artistic coup," suggests sociologist David Marc,author of "Corhic Visions: Television Comedyand American Culture." Unlike fellow TVcomedy-variet! icon Milton Berle,. "who ap-pealed to urban audiences and had Yiddish-isms and drag and all that stuff," says Marc,"Skelton's a real heartland product, doingmidwestern carnival humor that was verymuch appreciated by the first wave of TV audi-ences ouiside the major cities."

Indeed, "The Red Skelton Show," was ablockbuster the year it began, 1951, pulling inmore than half the total TV audience eachweek (rare even in those days offew channels).The series then remained solid, if unspectacu-lar, until 1958, when it began a l2-year reignas a major ratings hit.

NUSUALLY FINISHING in the sea-son's Top 10, twice reaching No. 2,it suddenly slumped in 1971 andwas cbnceled after 20 years - thelongest run of any variety show but

Ed Sullivan's, and the longest for any TV per-former-host. According to the statistical rank-ing in the authoritative "Complete Directoryto Prime Time Network TV Shows 1946-Pre-sent," it is the second most popular series of alltime (after "Gunsmoke"), based on audiencesize and longevity.

"He missed the boat age-wise on the cinemacount, in that he-was very much like Chaplin, amime who mixed slapstick with pathos," says

Erous, an(I anJrway, f,ms ts tt€(l DKeltron, wnosetelevision image accompanied the wonderyears of every journalist in the room. And asSkelton put it himself, "I've never seen a birthcertificate on ajoke."

"He might just be a nostalgia act - just put-ting on his Clem Kadiddlehopper hat knowing

Television actually becarne an opportunity forhiin to go back to the vaudeville trunk."

Carnegie Hall seems a similar opportumty, ifthe routines he did off-the-cuff for reporters is

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any indication. Clem Kadiddlehopper:"Since I saw you folks last, I gotmarried. Had a military wedding . . .

There was guns there, let's put itthat wa. . I met my wife through herb_q_o_t-her, He says to me, 'Would youli&$lto meet one of my sisters? I'vegut two, one's named Hortense, theot.re,r's named Lassie.' I said, 'Lass-

SKELTONfTom PageS the pain from her own caneer anylonger. So she took her life at thevery hour that he passed away. Andshe left a note:.'The reason I chosethis day wari so you wouldn't feel badtwice in one year."'

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In some ways, that story well illus-trates Skelton's secret as a performer:his effortless ability to slide from gen-tle comedy to gentle tragedy. Thetragic has always colored and in-formed his performances,.from thepathos of his mime routine "TheSame Couple on their Honeymoonand 50 Years Later" to his awareni:ss

- long before it beeame a popular is-sue - of the hearing-impaired in hisaudience; Skelton for years has beenaccompanied on-stage by a signer forthe deaf. And gone now is the tramp-clown Freddy the Freeloader, whomay not be so amusing in these daysof homelessness (though Skelton sayshe dropped the mimed character onlybecause'of the 15-minute makeupregimen - .a not entirely convincingneason for a lifelong clown, and theson of the clown).

When Skelton plays Carnegie Halltonight audiences will get a ballot tolet them choose which routinee theymost want to see. Mixed with thosewill be new bits -.he's forever com-ing up with them, evin when merelysubstituting corn for donuts in amime about the different ways peopleeat.

His style of humor may be old butnot.par,ticularly oJd-fashioned, whenyou consider the hundreds of yrgarsmodern clowns have been around,and that the slapstick routines ofsuch bankable stars as Chevy Chase

simply. "If you've never heard it be.fore, it's new." /ll

Frank Louece is a freelance writer.

Mop'n'Glo!"' ,fh" journalists guffawed. Skelton's. filet two names, long unused, are

Richard Bernard, but tliis wasn't thekind of gathering where anyonewould press the point, especially sinceSkelton is remarkably candid. Hedrew a,.stunned, respectfirl silencef,rou presumably tough journalistswhen.he recounted the tragic circum-stances that led him to marry histhird and current wife, Lothian, 25years his junior, in 1973.

His future father-in-law was hisfriend Gregg'Toland, the cinemato-.ggphec of "Citizen l(ane." "I used to

4,:Se::qiL.gtrd visit with him," SkeltoniecaUs, "'and Lothian at the time wasa tiny little thirag - I used tp pushher around in her stroller.'::"'Decadeg', ,rla*er, Skelton's wife of 28 years,- Ciieorgia, learoed she was dying ofcan@r. "And she said to Lothian, 'If

him betterthan anyone.'And then on the dayth+t,our son died froq leukemia," he

- stid softly, "my wife couldn't stand. -i;:,- l