Tom Eagleson 

ANSWER:

My dad's lengthy career in the entertainment business began when he joined the Stage Children in a charming production of Grumpy in New York when he was fourteen-years-old. His love of the profession took him into vaudeville, silent, movies, radio, the "talkies" and television. He played waiters and gangsters, sidekicks and trappers, comics and scapegoats in over 200 films with famous stars of the silver screen. But the roles he loved the most were the ones with Abbott and Costello.  His affection and friendship with Lou Costello was a basis for joy and happiness.

I loved going with dad to the studio to watch them film. On the way he would pick up Mr. Costello. One day as we were driving, Lou saw a newsboy selling newspapers on the corner. "Oh, Bobby," he said, "Pull over, I wanna talk with that kid." Lou rolled down the window and called the boy over. He asked his name, they talked, and Lou gave him a five dollar bill for the paper. The boy was in awe, but it was dad and Lou's joy to do things like this.

My dad loved food, was a great cook and learned along the way to make all the dishes he loved. Lou also loved to eat and would occasionally ask dad to make him his favorites while on the set between scenes. One time when I was visiting, Lou said, "Bobby, know what? I feel I could go for a fried egg sandwich about now." Dad went into the dressing room, made  a fried egg sandwich (with catsup and mayonnaise). Lou commented saying, "That was the best egg sandwich I ever ate," and made that same comment every time!

Every Christmas Eve was always celebrated with the Costello family, friends and business associates at their home on Longridge. There was always much food, fun, music, and always beautifully wrapped gifts for everyone. Even our local parish priest was in attendance to lend his spiritual presence to the festivities.

These two men, both with Italian backgrounds, shared their love of family, food, laughter, and just plain silliness -- they were the best of friends right up to Lou's passing in 1959. My dad was never the same following Lou's death -- that's how close they were.

On The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947), one unique provision in producer Robert Arthur's $750,000 budget was $800 for the services of a "Comedy Continuity Artist." This was court jester extraordinaire Bobby Barber. Barber who had bit roles in a handful of Abbott and Costello films, was hired to clown exclusively off-camera by director Charles Barton. Barton had used Bobby's specialized services in the past, and he brought Bobby in to keep Abbott and Costello amused. It was the beginning of a long, warm friendship.

Bobby proved his value during the second week of production. Bobby's widow, Maxine, explained, "Lou and Bobby weren't close until Lou's father died. Lou's father had a special chair on the set. Lou walked on the set, saw the chair, started to cry, and walked out. They said, 'Bobby, go get him.' So Bobby ran after Lou, and walked and talked with him. I don't know what Bobby said to him, but he got Lou to come back. From then on, they were inseparable."

On the day following Lou's father's funeral, he made an unexpected visit to the large western saloon set (they had shut down production for four days). He appeared very solemn, and the cast and crew fell silent out of respect. Even Bobby, who was standing at the center of the set, was quiet. Lou walked slowly onto the set and, as he passed Bobby, squirted a mouthful of water on him. The entire soundstage erupted in laughter, and the picture was able to resume in the proper spirit.

After Who's On First?, the most significant routine of Abbott and Costello's careers was the Lemon Bit. Who's On First? brought them fame, but the Lemon Bit brought them together.

Early in 1935 the boys were working with other partners at the Eltinge Theater on 42nd Street. Costello's straight man fell ill and Abbott staged the Lemon Bit for Lou. Bud's wife, Betty, recalled, "They worked wonderfully together. People started to say, "Why don't you team up?"

Bud learned the routine years earlier when he worked with Harry Steppe, a great comic who honed the Lemon Bit but did not originate it. Sam Rice, a comedian known as the King of Burlesque before World War I, created the Lemon Bit in 1907 for the Merry Maidens show on the old Empire Wheel. Starting in 1913, other shows paid Rice a royalty to use the sketch.

One comic, Max Fields, polished the Lemon Bit until his version became the gold standard. Billboard, reviewing Fields in the 1919 show Sweet Sweetie Girls, wrote "The shell game ... furnished more comedy and evoked more laughter than any shell game we have seen heretofore in burlesque."

At the end of the season the Burlesque Club held its First Annual Jamboree, an all-star benefit where top bananas performed the best bits from various shows. Fields closed the show  with the Lemon Bit, which Billboard called "a scream from start to finish."

That fall, Fields did the sketch on the Columbia wheel with Harry O'Neal, an outstanding straight man who helped improve the bit. Billboard thought the Lemon Bit was now "faster and funnier than we have ever seen it worked before." The following year, 1921, O'Neal joined Harry Steppe's Columbia wheel show. They further refined the routine and also used it in a Shubert vaudeville revue.

Sam Rice retired from performing in 1922 and magnanimously granted free use of the Lemon Bit to his friends in burlesque. Four productions on the Mutual and Columbia wheels featured the routine in the 1922-23 season, including shows with Harry Steppe and John Grant. There were now variations using eggs or apples instead of lemons.

In 1925, Harry O'Neal signed with a Shubert nightclub revue and did the Lemon Bit with Jack Pearl (later famous on radio as Baron Munchausen). Meanwhile, Steppe and straight man Owen Martin were doing the routine at Hurtig and Seamon's 125th Street Theater. A Shubert scout, unaware that the bit was a burlesque standard, alerted his bosses and the Shuberts threatened to sue for infringement. (Apparently Max Fields, who was still doing the sketch on the Mutual wheel, went unnoticed.)

At first this copyright argument panicked the burlesque world, but Sam Rice came forward to trace the routine's lineage and quash the Shuberts' claim. The industry had a good laugh over the incident at the next Burlesque Club Jamboree in 1926. The show closed with a musical number about the Lemon Bit, and every straight man and comic in the theater rushed on stage to make mock claims of authorship. Then Harry Steppe, whose version was the new benchmark, performed the routine with Owen Martin.

In 1928 it was estimated that a dozen acts were using the Lemon Bit. "In this non-royalty paying era," Variety wrote, "who can blame them for sticking to known values." 

After a stint in vaudeville without the Lemon Bit, Steppe reprised the sketch with Bud Abbott in a 1929-30 Mutual wheel show. Variety reported, "This one was worked for howls despite familiarity ..." Variety called Bud "a corking straight with much better possibilities than burlesque."

While the Lemon Bit was ubiquitous  in the 1920's, it became scarce after 1930. Not only was it played out, but it lost its best interpreters. Harry O'Neal died suddenly in 1928; Max Field stopped performing due to health issues in 1931; and Harry Steppe passed away late in 1934, just before Abbott and Costello crossed paths at the Eltinge. Perhaps Harry's death inspired Bud to teach the Lemon Bit to Lou.

After they formally teamed in 1936, Abbott and Costello became the new custodians of the routine. They did it in stage shows in 1938 and 1939, then in the Broadway musical Streets of Paris. Variety's critic wrote, "The shell game bit, done with lemons, is a wow ..."

Between shooting One Night in the Tropics and Buck Privates, they did the Lemon Bit at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. A few months later they committed the routine to film in In the Navy (1941).

The boys seemingly retired the routine until 1950, when they did it at the London Palladium. A few months later they used it in their TV debut on the Colgate Comedy Hour. Soon after, the boys filmed the Lemon Bit for the "Charity Bazaar" episode of their TV series.

Bud and Lou did the Lemon Bit at live appearances at Sydney Stadium in Australia in June of 1955, and the following summer in a nightclub date in San Francisco.

After Abbott and Costello split, Lou did the routine on the Steve Allen Show with Tom Poston and Louis Nye in December 1957.

Whatever became of Sam Rice, who originated one of the most popular burlesque sketches of all time? Rice, whose real name was George Samuel O'Hanlon, moved the family to the west coast in 1931 and became a bit player in over 70 films. He died in 1946 at his home in Burbank. He was 71.

One of his three sons, George, Jr., used the stage name Sam Rice, Jr. to break into burlesque when he was 17. A young comic named Lou Costello befriended him and became a mentor to him. George later wrote and starred in numerous Joe McDoakes  shorts produced by Warner Bros. from 1945 to 1956. You may know him best, however, as the voice of George Jetson in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series.


Ron Palumbo is one of the foremost historians on Abbott and Costello. He launched the official Abbott and Costello Fan Club in the late 1970's with an extra-added club bonus of The Abbott and Costello Quarterly. He also co-authored "Abbott and Costello in Hollywood" with then archivist to the Abbott and Costello estates, Bob Furmanek.

If  interested in joining the Official Fan Club, email Ron at [email protected] or Bill Honor at [email protected].