Richard Red Skelton was an American comedy entertainer. He was best known for his national radio and television shows between 1937 and 1971. He also appeared in burlesque, vaudeville, films, nightclubs, and casinos. He pursued an entirely separate career as an artist. He died of a heart attack at the age of 83.
About Red Skelton in brief
Richard Red Skelton was an American comedy entertainer. He was best known for his national radio and television shows between 1937 and 1971. He also appeared in burlesque, vaudeville, films, nightclubs, and casinos, all while he pursued an entirely separate career as an artist. He believed that his life’s work was to make people laugh; he wanted to be known as a clown because he defined it as being able to do everything. His widow donated many of his personal and professional effects to Vincennes University, including prints of his artwork. They are part of the Red Skellton Museum of American Comedy at Vincennes, Indiana. Skelton was the fourth and youngest son of Joseph Elmer and Ida Mae Skelton. His father, a grocer, died two months before Richard was born; he had once been a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. His birth certificate surname was that of his father’s stepfather, Wesley Hyatt. During his lifetime there was some dispute about the year of his birth, and he may have claimed he was older than he actually was in order to gain employment. He died of a heart attack at the age of 83. He is buried in Vincnes, Indiana, with his wife, Georgia, and their three children. He had a son, Robert, who is also a comedian, and a daughter, Susan, who was a singer and actress. He has a grandson, Michael, who appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1983 and appeared on the Today Show with Johnny Carson again in 1992.
His great-great-grandson, Michael Skeelton, is a comedian and actor, who also appeared on Today and The Today Show. He appeared in numerous musical and comedy films throughout the 1940s and 1950s, with starring roles in 19 films, including Ship Ahoy, I Dood It, Ziegfeld Follies, and The Clown. He had three children, two of whom died in childhood. He and his wife Georgia were married for more than 50 years. He lived in Indiana, where he had a large following of fans and fans of his comedy characters. His last year with a regularly scheduled television show in 1971 was spent making as many as 125 personal appearances a year and working on his paintings. His paintings remained a hobby until 1964, when his wifeGeorgia persuaded him to show it at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas while he was performing there. He later sold prints and lithographs, earning USD 2.5 million yearly on lithograph sales. He once claimed that he had earned more money through his paintings than from his television performances. He never had a children’s television show, but he did have several children of his own, including a son and two step-daughters. His wife Georgia and his daughter Susan had a daughter and a son-in-law, both of whom also worked in the entertainment industry.
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This page is based on the article Red Skelton published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 21, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
