Eddie Cantor | |
|---|---|
 Cantor in 1945 | |
| Born | Isidore Itzkowitz (1892-01-31)January 31, 1892 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 10, 1964(1964-10-10) (aged 72) |
| Resting place | Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery inCulver City, California |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1907–1962 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5 |
| President of theScreen Actors Guild | |
| In office 1933–1935 | |
| Preceded by | Ralph Morgan |
| Succeeded by | Robert Montgomery |
Eddie Cantor (bornIsidore Itzkowitz;[1][2] January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author.[3] Cantor was one of the prominent entertainers of his era.
Some of his hits include "Makin' Whoopee", "Ida (Sweet as Apple Cider)", "If You Knew Susie", "Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me", "Mandy", "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "Margie", and "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" He also wrote a few songs, including "Merrily We Roll Along", theMerrie MelodiesWarner Bros. cartoon theme.
His eye-rolling song-and-dance routines eventually led to his nickname "Banjo Eyes". In 1933, artist Frederick J. Garner caricatured Cantor with large round eyes resembling the drum-like pot of a banjo. Cantor's eyes became histrademark, often exaggerated in illustrations, and leading to his appearance on Broadway in the musicalBanjo Eyes (1941).
He helped to develop theMarch of Dimes and is credited with coining its name.[4] Cantor was awarded an honoraryOscar in 1956 for distinguished service to the film industry.
Reports and accounts of Cantor's early life often conflict with one another. He was born inNew York City, the son of Mechel (a.k.a. Michael) Iskowitz, an amateur violinist; and his wife (a.k.a. Maite) Meta Kantrowitz Iskowitz, a young Jewish couple fromRussia.[5] It is generally accepted that he was born in 1892, though the day is subject to debate, with either January 31 orRosh Hashanah, which was on September 10 or September 11, being reported.[6][7][8] Although it was reported Cantor was an orphan, his mother dying in childbirth and his father ofpneumonia, official records say otherwise; Meta died from complications oftuberculosis in July 1894, and the fate of Mechel is unclear, as nodeath certificate exists for him. There is also discrepancy as to his name; both his 1957 autobiography andThe New York Times obituary for Cantor report his birth name as Isidore Iskowitch, although some articles published after the 20th century give his birth name as Edward (a nickname given him by his future wife, Ida, in 1913) or Israel Itzkowitz.[9][6] His grandmother, Esther Kantrowitz (died January 29, 1917), took custody of him, and referred to him as Izzy and Itchik (both diminutives for Isidor), and his last name, due to a clerical error, was thought to be Kantrowitz and shortened to Kanter.[6] Nobirth certificate existed for him, though this is not unusual for someone born in New York in the 19th century.
By his early teens, Cantor began winning talent contests at local theaters and started appearing on stage. One of his earliest paying jobs was doubling as a waiter and performer, singing for tips at Carey Walsh'sConey Island saloon, where a youngJimmy Durante accompanied him on piano. He made his first public appearance inVaudeville in 1907 at New York's Clinton Music Hall. In 1912, he was the only performer over the age of 20 to appear inGus Edwards'sKid Kabaret, where he created his firstblackface character "Jefferson". He later toured withAl Lee as the team Cantor and Lee. Critical praise from that show got the attention of Broadway's top producerFlorenz Ziegfeld, who gave Cantor a spot in the Ziegfeld rooftop post-show,Midnight Frolic (1917).[6]
A year later, Cantor made his Broadway debut in theZiegfeld Follies of 1917. He continued in theFollies until 1927,[10] a period considered[by whom?] the best years of the long-running revue. For several years, Cantor co-starred in an act with pioneer comedianBert Williams, both appearing in blackface; Cantor played Williams's fresh-talking son. Other co-stars with Cantor during his time in theFollies includedWill Rogers,Marilyn Miller,Fanny Brice, andW.C. Fields.[11] He moved on to stardom in book musicals, starting withKid Boots (1923) andWhoopee! (1928).[10] The successful Broadway run ofBanjo Eyes was cut short when Cantor suffered a majorheart attack, the first of several that would plague his later years.
Cantor was a headliner at theSteel Pier Theater inAtlantic City.
Cantor appeared on radio as early as February 3, 1922, as indicated by this news item from Connecticut'sBridgeport Telegram:
Local radio operators listened to one of the finest programs yet produced over the radiophone last night. The program of entertainment which included some of the stars of Broadway musical comedy and vaudeville was broadcast from the Newark, New Jersey stationWDY and the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania stationKDKA, both of theWestinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. The Newark entertainment started at 7 o'clock: a children's half-hour of music and fairy stories; 7:[35?], Hawaiian airs and violin solo; 8:00, news of the day; and at 8:20, a radio party with nationally known comedians participating; 9:55, Arlington time signals and 10:01, a government weather report. G.E. Nothnagle, who conducts a radiophone station at his home 176 Waldemere Avenue said last night that he was delighted with the program, especially with the numbers sung by Eddie Cantor. The weather conditions are excellent for receiving, he continued, the tone and the quality of the messages was fine.[12]
Cantor's appearance withRudy Vallee on Vallee'sThe Fleischmann's Yeast Hour on February 5, 1931, led to a four-week tryout withThe Chase and Sanborn Hour. ReplacingMaurice Chevalier, who was returning to Paris, Cantor joinedChase and Sanborn on September 13, 1931. This hour-long Sunday evening variety series teamed Cantor with announcer Jimmy Wallington and violinist Dave Rubinoff. The show established Cantor as a leading comedian, and his scriptwriter,David Freedman, as "the Captain of Comedy". Freedman's team included, among others, Samuel "Doc" Kurtzman, who also wrote for song-and-dance man, Al Jolson, and the comedianJack Benny. Cantor soon became the world's highest-paid radio star. His shows began with a crowd chanting "We want Can-tor! We want Can-tor!", a phrase said to have originated in vaudeville, when the audience chanted to chase off an act on the bill before Cantor. Cantor's theme song was his own lyric to the Leo Robin/Richard Whiting song, "One Hour with You". His radio sidekicks includedBert Gordon, (comic Barney Gorodetsky, AKA The Mad Russian) andHarry Parke (better known as Parkyakarkus). Cantor also discovered and helped guide the career of singerDinah Shore, first featuring her on his radio show in 1940, as well as other performers, includingDeanna Durbin,Bobby Breen in 1936, andEddie Fisher in 1949.
Indicative of his effect on the mass audience, he agreed in November 1934 to introduce a new song by the songwritersJ. Fred Coots andHaven Gillespie that other well-known artists had rejected as being "silly" and "childish". The song, "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", immediately had orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day. It sold 400,000 copies by Christmas of that year.[13]
His NBC radio showTime to Smile was broadcast from 1940 to 1946,[citation needed] followed by hisPabst Blue Ribbon Show from 1946 through 1949. The Pabst program ended when the sponsor wanted Cantor to add a weekly television program. Cantor refused to take on the additional broadcast. The trade publicationBillboard reported that Cantor and Pabst "parted friends" after "several months of negotiation."[14] He also served as emcee ofTake It or Leave It during 1949–1950, and hosted a weekly disc jockey program forPhilip Morris during the 1952–1953 season. In addition to film and radio, Cantor recorded forHit of the Week Records, then again for Columbia, forBanner andDecca and various small labels.
In the early 1960s, he syndicated the short radio segment "Ask Eddie Cantor".[15]
His heavy political involvement began early in his career, including his participation in the strike to form Actors Equity in 1919, provoking the anger of father figure and producer,Florenz Ziegfeld. At the1939 New York World's Fair, Cantor publicly denouncedantisemitic radio personalityFather Charles Coughlin and then was dropped by his radio sponsorCamel cigarettes. A year and a half later, Cantor was able to return to the air because of help from his friend Jack Benny.
Cantor began makingphonograph records in 1917, recording both comedy songs and routines and popular songs of the day, first forVictor, then forAeoleon-Vocalion,Pathé, andEmerson. From 1921 through 1925, he had an exclusive contract withColumbia Records, returning to Victor for the remainder of the decade.
| A 1922 recording by Cantor | |
|---|---|
Sophie, fromMake It Snappy, recorded in 1922 |
Cantor was one of the era's most successful entertainers, but the1929 stock market crash took away his multimillionaire status and left him deeply in debt. However, Cantor's relentless attention to his own earnings to avoid the poverty he knew growing up caused him to use his writing talent, quickly building a new bank account with his highly popular, bestselling books of humor and cartoons about his experience,Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street[16] in 1929 "A.C." (After Crash), andYoo-Hoo, Prosperity!
Cantor was also a composer, with his most famous song seldom attributed to him. In 1935, along with Charles Tobias (Ida's brother) and Murray Mencher, Cantor wrote "Merrily We Roll Along". It was adapted as the theme song for theMerrie Melodies series of animated cartoons, distributed byWarner Brothers Pictures between 1936 and 1964. Cantor himself was frequently caricatured in Warner cartoons of the period, (see Film and television: Animation).[17]
He would have big success with his albumThe Eddie Cantor Sotry, which would reach No. 7 in theUS.[18]
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Cantor also made numerous film appearances. He had previously appeared in a number of short films, performing hisFollies songs and comedy routines, and two silent features (Special Delivery andKid Boots) in the 1920s. He was offered the lead inThe Jazz Singer after it was turned down byGeorge Jessel. Cantor also turned the role down (so it went toAl Jolson), but he became a leading Hollywood star in 1930 with the film version ofWhoopee!, shot in two-colorTechnicolor. He continued making films over the next two decades until his last starring role inIf You Knew Susie (1948).
On May 25, 1944, pioneer television station WPTZ (nowKYW-TV) in Philadelphia presented a special, all-star telecast which was also seen in New York over WNBT (nowWNBC) and featured cut-ins from their Rockefeller Center studios. Cantor, one of the first major stars to agree to appear on television, was to sing "We're Havin' a Baby, My Baby and Me". Arriving shortly before airtime at the New York studios, Cantor was reportedly told to cut the song because the NBC New York censors considered some of the lyrics too risqué. Cantor refused, claiming no time to prepare an alternative number. NBC relented, but the sound was cut and the picture blurred on certain lines in the song. This is considered the first instance of television censorship.[19]
From 1950 to 1954, Cantor was a regular guest host on the television variety seriesThe Colgate Comedy Hour. In 1950, he became the first of several hosts alternating on the NBC television variety showThe Colgate Comedy Hour, in which he would introduce musical acts, stage and film stars and play comic characters such as "Maxie the Taxi". In the spring of 1952, Cantor landed in an unlikely controversy when a youngSammy Davis Jr., appeared as a guest performer. Cantor embraced Davis and mopped Davis's brow with his handkerchief after his performance. When worried sponsors led NBC to threaten cancellation of the show, Cantor's response was to book Davis for two more weeks. Cantor suffered a heart attack following a September 1952 Colgate broadcast, and thereafter, curtailed his appearances until his final program in 1954. In 1955, he appeared in a filmed series for syndication and a year later, appeared in two dramatic roles ("George Has A Birthday", on NBC'sMatinee Theatre broadcast in color, and "Size.man and Son" on CBS'sPlayhouse 90). He continued to appear as a guest on several shows, and was last seen on the NBC color broadcast ofThe Future Lies Ahead on January 22, 1960, which also featuredMort Sahl.
Cantor appears in caricature form in numerousLooney Tunes cartoons produced for Warner Bros., although he was often voiced by an imitator. Beginning withI Like Mountain Music (1933), other animated Cantorcameos includeShuffle Off to Buffalo (Harman-Ising, 1933) andBillboard Frolics (Friz Freleng, 1935). Eddie Cantor is one of the four "down on their luck" stars (along withBing Crosby, Al Jolson, and Jack Benny) snubbed byElmer Fudd inWhat's Up, Doc? (Bob McKimson, 1950). InFarm Frolics (Bob Clampett, 1941), a horse, asked by the narrator to "do a canter", promptly launches into a singing, dancing, eye-rolling impression. The Cantor gag that got the most mileage, however, was his oft-repeated wish for a son after five famous daughters.Slap-Happy Pappy (Clampett, 1940) features an "Eddie Cackler" rooster that wants a boy, to little avail. Other references can be found inBaby Bottleneck (Clampett, 1946) andCircus Today (Tex Avery, 1940). InMerrie Melodies,The Coo-Coo Nut Grove Cantor's many daughters are referenced by a group of singing quintuplet girls. InPorky's Naughty Nephew (Clampett, 1938) a swimming Cantor gleefully adopts a "buoy".[20] An animated Cantor also appears prominently inWalt Disney's "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (Wilfred Jackson, 1938) asLittle Jack Horner, who sings "Sing a Song of Sixpence".
Cantor's popularity led to merchandising of such products asEddie Cantor's Tell It to the Judge game fromParker Brothers. In 1933, Brown and Bigelow published a set of 12 Eddie Cantor caricatures by Frederick J. Garner. The advertising cards were purchased in bulk as a direct-mail item by such businesses as auto body shops, funeral directors, dental laboratories, and vegetable wholesale dealers. With the full set, companies could mail a single Cantor card each month for a year to their selected special customers as an ongoing promotion. Cantor was often caricatured on the covers ofsheet music and in magazines and newspapers. Cantor was depicted as a balloon in theMacy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[21] one of the very few balloons based on a real person.
In addition toCaught Short!, Cantor wrote or co-wrote at least seven other books, including booklets released by the then-fledgling firm ofSimon & Schuster, with Cantor's name on the cover. (Some were "as told to" or written withDavid Freedman.) Customers paid a dollar and received the booklet with a penny embedded in the hardcover. They sold well, andH.L. Mencken asserted that the books did more to pull America out of theGreat Depression than all government measures combined.
Cantor was the second president of theScreen Actors Guild, serving from 1933 to 1935.
He invented the title "The March ofDimes" for the donation campaigns of theNational Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was organized to combatpolio. It was aplay onThe March of Timenewsreels popular at the time. He began the first campaign on his radio show in January 1938, asking listeners to mail a dime to PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. At that time, Roosevelt was themost notable American victim of polio. Other entertainers joined in the appeal via their own shows, and theWhite House mail room was deluged with 2,680,000 dimes—a large sum at the time.
Cantor also recorded a spoken introduction on a 1938 Decca recording of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" byBing Crosby andConnee Boswell in which he thanks the listener for buying the record, which supported the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. That record hit No. 1 on the charts, though Cantor did not sing on it. A lifelongDemocrat, Cantor supportedAdlai Stevenson during the1952 presidential election.[22]
Cantor was profiled onThis Is Your Life, a program in which an unsuspecting person (usually a celebrity) would be surprised on live television by hostRalph Edwards, with a half-hour tribute. Cantor was the only subject who was told of the "surprise" in advance; he was recovering from a heart attack, and it was felt that the shock might harm him.[citation needed]
In 1951 he received an honorary doctorate fromTemple University.[23]
There was an Eddie Cantor caricature featured inComedy Store, and flashing lights on it marked the end of auditions for comedians.[24]
Warner Bros., in an attempt to duplicate the box-office success ofThe Jolson Story, filmed a big-budgetTechnicolor feature filmThe Eddie Cantor Story (1953). The film found an audience but might have done better with someone else in the leading role. ActorKeefe Brasselle played Cantor as a caricature with high-pressure dialogue and bulging eyes wide open; the fact that Brasselle was considerably taller than Cantor did not lend realism. Eddie and Ida Cantor were seen in a brief prologue and epilogue set in a projection room, where they are watching Brasselle in action; at the end of the film, Eddie tells Ida "I never looked better in my life"... and gives the audience a knowing, incredulous look.[citation needed]George Burns, in his memoirAll My Best Friends, claimed that Warner Bros. created a miracle producing the movie in that "it made Eddie Cantor's life boring".[25]
Probably the best summary of Cantor's career is on one of theColgate Comedy Hour shows.[26] Re-issued on DVD asEddie Cantor in Person, the hour-long episode is a virtual video autobiography, with Eddie recounting his career, singing his greatest hits, and recreating his singing-waiter days with another vaudeville legend, his old palJimmy Durante.
Cantor appears as a recurring character, played byStephen DeRosa, on the seriesBoardwalk Empire.
Cantor adopted the first name "Eddie" when he met his future wife Ida Tobias in 1913, because she felt that "Izzy" was not the right name for an actor. Cantor and Ida (1892–1962) were married on June 6, 1914. They had five daughters – Marjorie (1915–1959),[27][28][29] Natalie (1916–1997), Edna June (1919–2003),Marilyn (1921–2010), and Janet (1927–2018). The girls provided comic fodder for Cantor's longtime running gag, especially on radio, about his five unmarriageable daughters.[27] Several radio historians, includingGerald Nachman (in his bookRaised on Radio), have said that this gag did not always sit well with the girls.
Natalie's first husband was Joseph Louis Metzger,[30] a businessman from Boston; they married in 1937.[31] Her second husband was the French-born American actorRobert Clary, who was best known for his role as Corporal Louis LeBeau onHogan's Heroes.[32] Edna married James Francis McHugh Jr., in 1938. McHugh Sr. was a songwriter who was close friends with Eddie Cantor.[31][33] Janet married the actorRoberto Gari.[34] Marilyn married a Canadian, Michael Baker, in 1960. She was the only child in the family to follow her father into show business.
Following the death of their daughter Marjorie at the age of 44, Eddie's and Ida's health declined rapidly. She had been her father's secretary and a magazine writer.[35] Ida died on August 9, 1962, at age 70 of "cardiac insufficiency",[6][36] and Eddie died on October 10, 1964, inBeverly Hills, California, after suffering his second heart attack at age 72.[37] He is interred inHillside Memorial Park Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Culver City, California.
Cantor was aFreemason via Munn Lodge No. 190 in New York City.[38][39]
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.
Eddie Cantor, banjo-eyed vaudevillian whose dancing feet and double-takes brought him stardom in movies, radio and television, died of a coronary occlusion today at the age of 72.
