Lou Costello

Louis Francis Cristillo (March 6, 1906 – March 3, 1959), professionally known as Lou Costello, was an American actor, best known for his film comedy double act with straight man Bud Abbott and their comedy routine "Who's on First?"
The comedians, who teamed up in burlesque in 1936, were among the most popular and highest-paid entertainers in the world during World War II. In 1942 they sold $85 million in war bonds in 35 days. By 1955 their popularity waned due to overexposure and their film and television contracts lapsed. The partnership ended soon afterwards.
==Early life==
Louis Francis Cristillo was born on March 6, 1906, in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Helen Rege and Sebastiano Cristillo. His father was Italian (from Caserta, Italy) and his mother was an American of French, Irish, and Italian ancestry.http://www.louandbud.com/Lou.htm, accessed January 30, 2007 He attended Public School 15 in Paterson and was considered a gifted athlete. He excelled in basketball and reportedly was twice Paterson's free throw champion. His basketball prowess can be seen in Here Come the Co-Eds (1945), in which he performs all his own tricky hoop shots without special effects. He also fought as a boxer under the name "Lou King".C. Costello (1981), p. 7.
==Family==
On January 30, 1934, Costello married Anne Battler, a burlesque dancer. Their first child, Patricia "Paddy" Costello, was born in 1936,, ... Patricia Anne Costello, 17, daughter of Abbott's comedy partner Lou Costello, after her marriage in California last week to James Cardinet ..., ... SANTA MONICA, THURSDAY — Film comedian Lou Costello Is now a grandfather with the birth of a boy yesterday to his daughter, Patricia Cardinet ... followed by Carole on December 23, 1938, and Lou Jr. (nicknamed "Butch") on November 6, 1942., ... The one-year-old son of comedian Lou Costello fell into the family swimming pool and was drowned this afternoon ... On August 15, 1947, their last child, Christine, was born., ... Mrs. Lou Costello has just given birth to a baby girl. This is her third daughter. It is to be named Christine, after Lou's father ...
==Career==
Costello was a great admirer of silent movie comedian Charlie Chaplin. In 1927, Costello hitchhiked to Hollywood to become an actor, but could only find work as a laborer or extra at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros. His athletic skill brought him occasional work as a stunt man, notably in The Trail of '98 (1928). He can also be spotted sitting ringside in the Laurel and Hardy film The Battle of the Century (1927). He took his professional name from actress Helene Costello.
===Burlesque and Bud Abbott===
In 1928, with the advent of talking pictures, Costello headed back east intending to get the requisite stage experience. Stranded in St. Joseph, Missouri, he convinced a local burlesque producer to hire him as a Dutch comic ("Dutch" was a corruption of "Deutsche", and the comic performed with a German accent). By the end of the year he was back in New York and began working in burlesque on the Mutual Burlesque wheel the following year.Furmanek, Bob and Ron Palumbo (1991). Abbott and Costello in Hollywood. New York: Perigee Books. 
After the Mutual Wheel collapsed during the Great Depression, Costello went to work for the Minskys, where he crossed paths with a talented producer and straight man named Bud Abbott. They first worked together in 1935 at the Eltinge Theatre on 42nd Street in New York City after Costello's partner fell ill. They formally teamed up in 1936.
Reportedly their first disagreement was over a booking in a minstrel show at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Costello wanted to take the gig, but Abbott was hesitant. Costello offered to give Abbott a larger split of their salary, and Abbott agreed.
===Radio and Hollywood===
Abbott and Costello were signed by the William Morris talent agency, which landed them featured roles and national exposure on The Kate Smith Hour, a popular radio variety show, in 1938. The team's signature routine, "Who's on First?", made its radio debut on Smith's show that year. Many of the team's sketches were further polished by John Grant, who was hired soon after the team joined the program. Their success on the Smith show led to their appearance in a Broadway musical in 1939, The Streets of Paris. 
The team was hosting a summer radio series in 1940 when they were signed by Universal Pictures. They had supporting roles in their first picture, One Night in the Tropics (1940), but stole the film with their classic routines, including a much-shortened version of "Who's On First?" (a more complete version was performed in The Naughty Nineties, released in 1945). The team's breakthrough picture, however, was Buck Privates, released early in 1941. They immediately became the No. 3 Box Office Stars of 1941.
After working as regulars on the Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy radio program in 1941-42, they launched their own show The Abbott and Costello Show, in October 1942.
===Fame and tragedy===
The duo made 36 films from 1940 to 1956, and were among the most popular and highest-paid entertainers in the world during World War II. Among their most popular films are Buck Privates, Hold That Ghost, Who Done It?, Pardon My Sarong, The Time of Their Lives, Buck Privates Come Home, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man.
In the summer of 1942, the team went on a 35-day cross-country tour to promote and sell War Bonds. The Treasury Department credited them with the sale of $85 million in bonds.
In March 1943, after completing a winter tour of army bases, Costello had an attack of rheumatic fever and was unable to work for six months. On November 4 of that year, he returned to the team's popular radio show, but upon arriving at the NBC studio, Costello received word that his infant son, Lou Jr., had accidentally drowned in the family pool. The baby worked loose one of the slats on his crib, climbed out and fell into the pool, unnoticed by the nanny.Sherman, Eddie (Lou's manager) interviewed on the program This is Your Life, NBC TV, presented by Ralph Edwards, 1956 (16:08), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWpEOXvnOmA, accessed January 20, 2014 The baby ('Little Butch') was just two days short of his first birthday. Lou had asked his wife to keep Butch up that night so the boy could hear his father on the radio for the first time. Rather than cancel the broadcast, Lou said, "Wherever he is tonight, I want him to hear me", and went on with the show. No one in the audience knew of the death until after the show, when Bud Abbott explained the events of the day and how the phrase "The show must go on" had been epitomized by Lou that night. Maxene Andrews of The Andrews Sisters, said that his entire demeanor changed after the tragic loss of his son, saying, "He didn't seem as fun-loving and as warm ... He seemed to anger easily ... there was a difference in his attitude."Sforza, John: Swing It! The Andrews Sisters Story; University Press of Kentucky, 2000; 289 pages.
It was about this time that serious cracks began to appear in the relationship between Abbott and Costello. In 1945, when Costello fired a domestic servant and Abbott hired her, Costello announced that he would no longer work with Abbott.C. Costello (1961), pp. 119–120. However, they were still under contract to Universal and required to complete two movies in 1946. They did Little Giant and The Time of Their Lives, but barely appeared together in either film and rarely spoke to one another off-camera.C. Costello (1961), p. 120. Abbott reached out to heal their relationship, suggesting that the foundation he and Costello had founded for rheumatic fever sufferers be named the Lou Costello Jr. Youth Foundation, which touched Costello deeply. The project became a youth foundation. 
Their radio program moved to ABC (the former NBC Blue Network) from 1947 to 1949. It was pre-recorded.
In 1951, the duo began to appear on live television, joining the rotating hosts of The Colgate Comedy Hour. (Eddie Cantor, Martin and Lewis and Bob Hope were among the others). The following year they began their own filmed situation comedy, The Abbott and Costello Show. Costello owned the half-hour series, with Abbott working on salary. The show, which was loosely adapted from their radio program, ran for two seasons, from 1952 to 1954, but found long life in syndicated reruns.
They were forced to withdraw from Fireman Save My Child in 1954 due to Costello's poor health — he had been plagued by heart problems all his life due to a childhood bout of rheumatic fever — and were replaced by look-alikes Hugh O'Brian and Buddy Hackett. The team could not reach a contract agreement with Universal the following year and left the studio after 15 years.
Costello was surprised and honored by Ralph Edwards on NBC's This Is Your Life in 1956.http://www.encyclopedia.com/.../c8v0xBFJMOI-this-is-your-life-lou.aspx 
===Abbott and Costello split===
By the mid-1950s, Abbott and Costello films were no longer box-office gold. With concurrent film and television appearances, they suffered from overexposure, and were further eclipsed by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who were the hot entertainment commodity that Abbott and Costello had been a decade earlier. After failing to come to terms with the team, Universal dropped their movie contract in 1955. 
In the early 1950s, troubles with the Internal Revenue Service forced both men to sell their large homes and the rights to some of their films. Abbott and Costello made their final film together, Dance with Me, Henry in 1956. The film was a box-office disappointment and received mixed critical reviews.
Abbott and Costello dissolved their partnership in 1957 amicably. Costello went back to his roots of stand-up, including stints in Las Vegas, and sought film projects for himself. He appeared several times on Steve Allen's fledgling The Tonight Show, but most often in variations of his old routines, with Louis Nye or Tom Poston taking on the straight man role. Costello sought to be known as something other than the funny fat man in the baggy clothes, and in 1958, he played a dramatic role on The Tobias Jones Story episode of Wagon Train.
==Death==
Shortly after completion of The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, his only starring film appearance without Abbott, Costello suffered a heart attack. He died at Doctors Hospital in Beverly Hills on March 3, 1959, three days before his 53rd birthday. Sources conflict on the circumstances of his last day and final words. By some accounts, restated in numerous "quotes" aggregates, he told visitors that the strawberry ice-cream soda he had just finished was "the best I ever tasted", then expired. By other reports, including several contemporaneous obituaries, the ice-cream soda exchange occurred earlier in the day; later, after his wife and friends had left, he asked his private-duty nurse to adjust his position in bed. "I think I'll be more comfortable", he said; but before the nurse could comply, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died.Los Angeles Times, March 4, 1959.Los Angeles Evening Mirror News, March 4, 1959.
After a funeral Mass at his parish, St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Sherman Oaks, Costello was interred at the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, on March 8. His wife Anne died from an apparent heart attack nine months later on December 5, 1959, at age 47.
==Family legacy in the entertainment industry==
Costello's older brother, Pat Costello (Anthony Sebastian Cristillo 1902–1990) was a stuntman and an actor, mostly performing the stunts in Lou's place.
Costello's sister, Marie Katherine Cristillo (1912–1988) was married to actor Joe Kirk (Nat Curcuruto), who portrayed "Mr. Bacciagalupe" on the Abbott and Costello radio and television shows Eder, Bruce. "Joe Kirk: Biography". AllMovie. Retrieved February 12, 2015. and appeared in supporting roles in several of the team's films.Nollen, Scott Allen (2009). "Appendix". Abbott and Costello on the Home Front: A Critical Study of the Wartime Films. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 192–199. . Retrieved February 12, 2015.
Lou and Anne's second daughter, Carole, appeared in uncredited baby roles in several Abbott and Costello films. She went on to become a contestant coordinator for the game show Card Sharks as well as a nightclub singer. She died of a stroke on March 29, 1987, at age 48 while married to Craig Martin, eldest son of Dean Martin. Carole's daughter, Marki Costello, is an actress, director and producer in film and television.
Lou and Anne's youngest daughter, Chris, published a biography, Lou's On First, in 1981.Costello, C. Lou's on First: A Biography: The tragic life of Hollywood's greatest clown warmly recounted by his youngest child. St. Martin's Press (1981). 
==Memorials==
On June 26, 1992, the city of Paterson, New Jersey, in conjunction with the Lou Costello Memorial Association, erected a statue of Costello in the newly named Lou Costello Memorial Park in the city's historic downtown section. It shows Costello holding a baseball bat, a reference to the team's most famous routine, "Who's on First?". The statue has had brief appearances in two episodes of The Sopranos: "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Cold Stones". The statue and the "Who's on First?" routine also featured in the film Paterson (2016). In 2005, Madison Street, in the Sandy Hill section of Paterson, where Costello was born, was renamed Lou Costello Place.
The centennial of Costello's birth was celebrated in Paterson on the first weekend in March 2006. From June 24 to 26, 2006, the Fort Lee Film Commission held a centennial film retrospective at the Fine Arts Theatre in Hollywood. Films screened included the premiere of a digital film made by the teenagers of the present day Lou Costello Jr. Recreation Center in East Los Angeles. Also premiered was a 35 mm restored print of the Lou Costello-produced 1948 short film 10,000 Kids and a Cop, which was shot at the Lou Costello, Jr. Youth Center in East Los Angeles.
In 2009, Costello was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Abbott and Costello are among the few non-baseball personnel to be memorialized in the Baseball Hall of Fame, although they are not inductees of the Hall. A plaque and a gold record of the Who's on First? sketch have been on permanent display there since 1956, and a video of the routine loops endlessly in the exhibit area.Dunning, J. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Oxford Univ. Press (1998), pp. 2–3. 
==Radio==
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
1938–1940	The Kate Smith Hour 	Costello	
1940–1949	The Abbott and Costello Show 	Costello	
1947–1949	The Abbott and Costello Children's Show	Costello	
==Filmography==
Year	Film 	Role 	Notes
1926	Bardelys the Magnificent 	 	Extra
1927	The Battle of the Century 	 	
1927	The Taxi Dancer 	 	Extra
1927	The Fair Co-Ed 	 	Extra
1928	Rose-Marie 	 	Extra
1928	Circus Rookies 	 	Extra
1928	The Cossacks 	 	Extra
1928	The Trail of '98 	 	Stunt DoubleAbbott and Costello on the Home Front: A Critical Study of the Wartime Films, By Scott Allen Nollen, Page 8
1940	One Night in the Tropics 	Costello 	Film debut of Abbott and Costello
1941	Buck Privates 	Herbie Brown 	
1941	In the Navy 	Pomeroy Watson 	
1941	Hold That Ghost 	Ferdinand Jones 	
1941	Keep 'Em Flying 	Heathcliffe 	
1942	Ride 'Em Cowboy 	Willoughby 	
1942	Rio Rita 	Wishy Dunn 	
1942	Pardon My Sarong 	Wellington Phlug 	
1942	Who Done It? 	Mervyn Milgrim 	
1943	It Ain't Hay 	Wilbur Hoolihan 	
1943	Hit The Ice 	Tubby McCoy 	
1944	In Society 	Albert Mansfield 	
1944	Lost in a Harem 	Harvey Garvey 	
1945	Here Come the Co-Eds 	Oliver Quackenbush 	
1945	The Naughty Nineties 	Sebastian Dinwiddie 	
1945	Abbott and Costello in Hollywood 	Abercrombie 	
1946	Little Giant 	Benny Miller 	
1946	The Time of Their Lives 	Horatio Prim 	
1947	Buck Privates Come Home 	Herbie Brown 	Sequel to Buck Privates
1947	The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap 	Chester Wooley 	
1948	The Noose Hangs High 	Tommy Hinchcliffe 	
1948	Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 	Wilbur Gray 	
1948	Mexican Hayride 	Joe Bascom/Humphrey Fish 	
1948	10,000 Kids and a Cop 	Himself 	Documentary short
1949	Africa Screams 	Stanley Livingston 	
1949	Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff	Freddie Phillips 	
1950	Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion 	Lou Hotchkiss 	
1951	Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man 	Lou Francis 	
1951	Comin' Round the Mountain 	Wilbert Smith 	
1952	Jack and the Beanstalk 	Jack 	In color
1952	Lost in Alaska 	George Bell 	
1952	Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd 	Oliver "Puddin' Head" Johnson	In color
1953	Abbott and Costello Go to Mars 	Orville 	
1953	Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 	Tubby 	
1955	Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops 	Willie Piper 	
1955	Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy 	Freddie Franklin 	
1956	Dance with Me, Henry 	Lou Henry 	
1959	The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock 	Artie Pinsetter 	Only starring film without Abbott
1965	The World of Abbott and Costello 	– 	Compilation film
==Television==
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
1951–1955	The Colgate Comedy Hour 	Costello 	Rotating hosts
1952–1954	The Abbott and Costello Show	Costello 	52 episodes
1956–1958	The Steve Allen Show 	Himself 	7 episodes
1956 	This Is Your Life 	Himself 	
1957 	I've Got a Secret 	Himself 	
1958 	General Electric Theater 	Neal Andrews	episode: Blaze of Glory
1958 	Wagon Train 	Tobias Jones	episode: The Tobias Jones Story
==References==
==External links==
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