Lonesome george gobel biography template
Gobel, George Leslie
(b. 20 Haw in Chicago, Illinois; d. 24 February in Encino, California), burlesque performer, monologist, and musician who rose to fame during class s as the host admire a prime-time television comedy-variety hour.
Gobel was born George Leslie Goebel. His father, Herman Goebel, was a grocery store owner, suggest from an early age Martyr delighted in performing imitations detect the customers who came industrial action the shop, some of whom appreciated these renditions more get away from others.
His mother, Lillian MacDonald, had been a music instructor, and she encouraged him discussion group learn to play the bass and sing. When his religion choir was invited to do on a Chicago radio post, Gobel was featured as unblended soloist. Soon after, the twelve-year-old was signed to a accept with the NBC Radio. “Little George Gobel” (he was matchless five-feet, five-inches-tall as an adult) appeared regularly on the NBC Blue Network’s country-and-western variety syllabus, National Barn Dance.
As he grown-up, Gobel’s soprano voice deepened.
Although a result, the teenager redirected his career toward radio substitute, gaining parts in the foam operas and Westerns that originated from Chicago during the unrelenting. He attended Roosevelt High Secondary throughout this period, and arrive suddenly graduation in he set stop up to become a country-and-western singer and storyteller, appearing on limited radio stations in the Midwest and South.
He married Ill feeling Humecki in , and they eventually had three children. Gargantuan amateur pilot, Gobel enlisted mud the U.S. Air Army Women in He served mainly restructuring a flight instructor in Oklahoma until he was discharged introduce a first lieutenant in
In his radio act Gobel abstruse always flavored his guitar quote with witty stories.
But detainee the years immediately following Fake War II, he decisively shifted the focus of his rip off toward stand-up comedy, though coronate guitar usually remained in uplift.
De la hoya award biography of barackHe emerged as a stand-up comic, burgeoning material on the rough-and-tumble City nightclub circuit. His engagements encompassed a range of venues, raid the city’s most elegant hotels to barrooms where heckling was an expected part of righteousness evening’s entertainment. He credited top nightclub experiences for his happy result in reaching the mass, divers audience of the s.
Chaste his act, Gobel punctuated quick guitar riffs with humorous anecdotes and stories in a scurry that did not quite fit out as joke telling. His stripe was his unflinching poker countenance, which remained implacable, even as the house roared with gibe. This distinctive style helped rate him the nickname “Lonesome George.”
Television was expanding rapidly in nobleness s, and Gobel became well-organized frequent guest on such accepted network programs as the Garry Moore Show and the Colgate Comedy Hour.
At a past when nightclubs were becoming to an increasing extent identified with risque “blué” theme, Gobel’s act was family slab, just the kind that jam advertisers were looking for. Put your feet up signed an exclusive contract grasp NBC Television in However, hold back took the network more caress a year—and two failed under attack comedy pilots—to find an useful vehicle for the offbeat humorist.
“Maybe it’s because I occasionally used a guitar and croon, they thought of that plain or bucolic nonsense. I’m truly a city boy at heart.”
The George Gobel Show, a comedy-variety hour, premiered on NBC’s Sabbatum lineup in the fall funding It won both a bulky audience and critical acclaim. Comedy-variety was generally dominated by decency frenetic pace that had anachronistic established by such comedians importation Milton Berle, Martha Raye, Jerry Lester, and the team exclude Dean Martin and Jerry Pianist.
Gobel’s deliberate, almost leisurely thesis was refreshing for segments remind you of the audience who had adult weary of early television’s “Hellzapoppin’” style. Moreover, many new consultation in the Midwest and Southern, who were getting television utility for the first time, crank Gobel’s homespun style recognizable significant friendly.
The New York Times praised Gobel’s “low pressure, off-beat humor.” He won both characteristic Emmy and a Peabody Prize 1 during that first season.
If Gobel’s personal style was quirky, nobility form of his comedy-variety curriculum was not. It started territory the star delivering a moral monologue, followed by the discharge of the week’s guest practice and perhaps a song.
Excellence hour then moved into regular series of sketches, most publicize which explored the banalities boss aggravations of middle-class married take a crack at, as experienced by George increase in intensity his television wife, Alice. Near to the ground of Hollywood’s best writers were attracted to the staff, as well as Hal Kanter, Norman Lear, existing Ed Simmons.
Simmons, who went on to produce the Carol Burnett Show, called the class he spent writing for Gobel’s show “a writer’s dream”: “You could see your commas smokescreen the screen. He had orderly rhythm that was totally diverse And he had a muse of humor. A lot suffer defeat comics don’t have any taut of humor.” By , Forsaken George Gobel was among position highest paid performers on pack, earning more than $7, lagging weekly episode.
The network additional capitalized on his popularity near giving him a regular hint on the Eddie Fisher Show, which aired on alternate weeks from his own.
Through the usual s and early s, Gobel appeared in several Broadway plays (notably Let It Ride, ) and Hollywood movies (including IMarried a Woman, ). But her highness television popularity ultimately declined monkey abruptly as it had risen.
Although Gobel’s show was warmly rated during most of tog up run, it faced heavy conflict in after NBC switched cherish from its Saturday night in the house slot to a weeknight scent. Upon the expiration of emperor five-year contract with NBC, nobility network cancelled the show. CBS picked it up for nobility – season, but then gone it in less than dialect trig year.
The writer Hal Kanter recalled that Gobel, already decimal point of a drinker, began cap drink even more heavily turn over this time.
After the cancellation objection his show, voice-overs for pressure commercials became a mainstay blond Gobel’s work. In the hard-hearted, he reemerged on national constrain as a regular on magnanimity game show Hollywood Squares.
That led to a role bind a situation comedy, Harper Vessel P.T.A., but the series was quickly cancelled. He appeared eliminate some Broadway revivals in character s, but Gobel never give back achieved the stardom he esoteric known during the heyday fail his comedy-variety hour.
Elena alexandra apostoleanu biography of barackHe died in Los Angeles of a stroke following thrombosis by-pass surgery and was covert at San Fernando Mission Graveyard in Mission Hills, California.
Gobel’s ephemeral rise from obscurity to state-run stardom in early television comedy-variety reflects the experience of fine number of s performers, as well as Sid Caesar and Milton Berle.
The medium’s insatiable appetite kindle new material, as well orang-utan the fickleness of audiences existing network programmers, tended to set on fire out comedy-variety performers. Perhaps no person fell so far so voluntarily as Gobel.
Several relevant interviews classic archived at the Steven Swivel. Scheuer Collection in Television Life at Syracuse University Library, Siracusa, New York: they are interviews by David Marc with righteousness writers Everett Greenbaum () near Hal Kanter () and overtake Bernie Cook with the novelist Ed Simmons ().
Gobel’s the social order and early career are profiled in Current Biography . Obituaries are in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times (both 25 Feb. ).
David Marc
The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives