Bert Wheeler (April 7, 1895 – January 18, 1968) was an American comedian who performed in vaudeville acts, Broadway theatre, American comedy feature films, and television. He was teamed with Broadway comic Robert Woolsey, and they went on to fame as Wheeler & Woolsey.[1]

Biography

Wheeler was born Albert Jerome Wheeler in Paterson, New Jersey on April 7, 1895.[1] He began his career performing in vaudeville in an act with Russ Brown.[2]

He worked with Robert Woolsey on Broadway until 1929, when a screen adaptation of their stage hit Rio Rita launched them in motion pictures.[1][3]

Rio Rita's production company, RKO Radio Pictures, was slow to see the potential of Wheeler & Woolsey. The studio signed Bert Wheeler to a movie contract during production, but not Robert Woolsey. It wasn't until the financial returns came in for Rio Rita that RKO signed both Woolsey and ingenue Dorothy Lee to appear in further films alongside Wheeler.[4]

From their first starring vehicle, The Cuckoos (1930), Wheeler & Woolsey established themselves as a very popular comedy team, and their films were dizzy conglomerations of joke-book dialogue, awful puns, elaborate visual gags, witty musical numbers, and scantily clad chorus girls (with Woolsey offering double-entendre jokes all the while).

By 1931 Wheeler & Woolsey were so popular that RKO attempted to generate twice the Wheeler & Woolsey income by making two solo pictures—one with Wheeler (Too Many Cooks) and one with Woolsey (Everything's Rosie). This experiment failed, and they returned to performing as a team. They continued to make popular feature films until 1937, when Woolsey became too ill to work.

Director Charles Reisner tried to keep Wheeler at the studio, proposing a series of comedy features co-starring Wheeler and Dorothy Lee.[5] The studio declined, reasoning that audiences would expect to be seeing Woolsey as well. Wheeler was released by the studio. The next scheduled Wheeler & Woolsey picture, the 1938 musical Radio City Revels, was retooled as a vehicle for Jack Oakie; Wheeler's wardrobe was assigned to comic dancer Buster West.

In 1938, after Robert Woolsey died, Bert Wheeler struggled to restart his career. His friend and former film costar Dorothy Lee agreed to tour with him in a vaudeville act early that year. He landed occasional roles in movies through 1941; his last feature film, Las Vegas Nights (1941), found Wheeler working with a new partner, comedian and comedy writer Hank Ladd.

During the 1940s Wheeler became a nightclub comedian. In 1943 he worked on radio on The Frank Sinatra Show.[6] In 1945 he co-starred with Jackie Gleason in a nightclub engagement; five years later Gleason invited him to appear several times on his TV variety hour Cavalcade of Stars. Wheeler's last theatrical films were two slapstick shorts for Columbia Pictures, filmed in 1950 and produced by Jules White.

Wheeler also kept up a busy schedule of live performances in nightclubs and on the legitimate stage, in such plays as Harvey (in the leading role of Elwood P. Dowd, earning rave reviews as Frank Fay's summer replacement in 1946) and Three Wishes for Jamie. In 1955 Wheeler co-starred with Keith Larsen in the CBS western series Brave Eagle; Wheeler played the "half-breed" Smokey Joe, known for his tall tales and tribal wisdom.

Wheeler continued to work in nightclubs, theater, and television through the 1960s, either alone or with comedian and singer Tom Dillon.

Bert Wheeler died of emphysema in New York City on January 18, 1968.[1] He had been a member of The Lambs Club since 1927.[7]

Filmography

(As per the AFI database)[8]

Title Year Role Notes
Rio Rita 1929 Chick Bean film debut
Dixiana 1930 Peewee
The Cuckoos 1930 Sparrow
Half Shot at Sunrise 1930 Tommy Turner
Hook, Line and Sinker 1930 Wilbur Boswell
Caught Plastered 1931 Tommy Tanner
Too Many Cooks 1931 Albert Bennett without Woolsey
Peach-O-Reno 1931 Wattles
Cracked Nuts 1931 Wendell Graham
Hold 'Em Jail 1932 Curly Harris
Girl Crazy 1932 Jimmy Deegan
Diplomaniacs 1933 Willy Nilly
So This Is Africa 1933 Wilbur Wheeler
Kentucky Kernels 1934 Willie Doyle
Hips, Hips, Hooray! 1934 Andy Williams
Cockeyed Cavaliers 1934 Bert Winstanley
The Nitwits 1935 Johnny
The Rainmakers 1935 Billy
Silly Billies 1936 Roy Banks
Mummy's Boys 1936 Stanley Wright
On Again-Off Again 1937 William "Willy" Hobbs
High Flyers 1937 Jerry Lane
The Cowboy Quarterback 1939 Harry Lynn without Woolsey
Las Vegas Nights 1941 Stu Grant without Woolsey
Innocently Guilty 1950 Hodkinson G. Pogglebrewer without Woolsey
The Awful Sleuth 1951 Bert Wheeler without Woolsey

Marriages

Wheeler was married five times. His only child, with Speer, was Patricia Anne Wheeler.

  • Margaret Grae (m. 27 April 1915 to 15 November 1926) divorced.
  • Bernice Speer (m. 15 April 1928 to 19 February 1936) divorced, they had 1 child.[9]
  • Sally Haines (m. 26 February 1937 to 1939) divorced.[10]
  • Patsy Orr (c1940 to c1950) divorced.
  • Olga Desmondae Rieman (m. 1951 - 8 August 1966) to her death.

Home video releases

Nine of Wheeler's 21 feature films were released in a DVD collection entitled "Wheeler & Woolsey: RKO Comedy Classics Collection" in March 2013 by Warner Archive.[11]

His 1929 Vitaphone playlet Small Timers and his 1950 Columbia shorts have not yet been released to video.

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Bert Wheeler, Vaudeville Comic With Rubbery Face, Dead at 72. His Over 50-Year Career in Show Business Spanned Films, the Follies and TV". The New York Times. January 18, 1968. Retrieved 2015-01-04.
  2. ^ Ruth Benjamin, Arthur Rosenblatt (2006). "Russ Brown". Who Sang what on Broadway, 1866-1996: The singers (A-K). McFarland & Company. p. 96. ISBN 9780786421893.
  3. ^ Mardaunt Hall (October 7, 1929). "Rio Rita (1929)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-01-05. The acting is uniformly capable. Robert Woolsey is excellent as the fast-talking, deep-voiced, narrow-shouldered Lovett. Bert Wheeler does exceedingly well as Chick Bean.
  4. ^ Edward Watz, Wheeler & Woolsey: The Vaudeville Comic Duo and Their Films, 1929-1937, McFarland, 1994, pp. 74-75. ISBN 0-89950-894-4.
  5. ^ Jamie Brotherton and Ted Okuda, Dorothy Lee: The Life and Films of the Wheeler and Woolsey Girl, McFarland, 2013, p. 108. ISBN 978-0-7864-3363-6.
  6. ^ "Swing Shift". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. October 7, 1943. p. 15. Retrieved July 24, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  7. ^ "Member Roster". The Lambs. Archived from the original on May 31, 2022. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
  8. ^ "Bert Wheeler". American Film Institute. Retrieved August 3, 2014.
  9. ^ "Bert Wheeler Is Divorced". The New York Times. February 20, 1936. Retrieved 2015-01-05. Mrs. Bernice S. Wheeler won an interlocutory divorce today from Bert Wheeler, screen comic, after testifying that his actions saddened her. 'He said he didn't want to live with me,' she testified. Custody of the couple's daughter, Patricia, was granted to Mrs. Wheeler. ...
  10. ^ "Wife Sues Bert Wheeler". The New York Times. May 13, 1939. Retrieved 2015-01-04. Bert Wheeler ... was sued for divorce today by Sally Haines ... The Wheelers married in Beverly Hills Feb. 26, 1937, and separated April 20, 1939
  11. ^ Kehr, Dave (2 March 2013). "DVD Ribaldry Before the Code". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Wheeler
No tags for this post.