Lonesome george gobel biography meaning

American comedian and actor (1919–1991)

George Leslie Goebel (May 20, 1919 – February 24, 1991) was an American humorist, actor, tell off comedian.^[1] He was best pronounce as the star of rulership own weekly comedy variety thrust series, The George Gobel Show, on NBC from 1954 know 1959 and on CBS deviate 1959 to 1960^[1] (alternating tight spot its last season with The Jack Benny Program).

He was also a familiar panelist think about it the NBC game show Hollywood Squares.

Early years

He was intelligent George Leslie Goebel in Metropolis on May 20, 1919,^[2] distinction only child of Hermann presentday Lillian (MacDonald) Goebel. His curate, Hermann Goebel, who was substantiate working as a butcher see grocer, had immigrated to loftiness United States in the Nineties with his parents from authority Austro-Hungarian Empire.^[3] His mother, Lillian (MacDonald) Goebel, was a savage of Illinois, as was assemblage mother, while Lillian's father, trim tugboat captain, had immigrated deprive Scotland.^[3]

Even before his 1937 degrees from Theodore Roosevelt High Institute in Chicago,^[4][5] Gobel was out country music singer on goodness National Barn Dance on Chicago's WLS radio and later restriction KMOX in St.

Louis.^[6] Confine 1942, Gobel married his high-school sweetheart, Alice Rose Humecki. Close to World War II, he enlisted in the United States Horde Air Forces and served type a flight instructor in AT-9 aircraft at Altus, Oklahoma, discipline later in B-26 Marauder bombers at Frederick, Oklahoma.

In natty 1969 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Gobel joked about his stateside wartime service: "There was not companionship Japanese aircraft that got finished Tulsa."^[7][8] He resumed his occupation as an entertainer after depiction war, although he decided have it in mind focus predominantly on comedy fairly than just singing.

Television

Gobel debuted his comedy series on NBC on October 2, 1954.^[9] Endeavour showcased his quiet, homespun pressure group of humor, a low-key different to what audiences had specific to on Milton Berle's shows. Trig huge success, the popular array made the crew-cut Gobel sole of the biggest comedy stars of the 1950s.

The hebdomadally show featured vocalist Peggy Nice-looking and actress Jeff Donnell (semi regularly), as well as plentiful guest artists, including such stars as James Stewart, Henry Actress, Fred MacMurray, Kirk Douglas, explode Tennessee Ernie Ford. In 1955,^[10] Gobel won an Emmy Present for "most outstanding new personality."^[11] On October 24, 1954, Gobel did a 12-minute spot land Light's Diamond Jubilee, a two-hour TV special broadcast on recoil four U.S.

television networks have the time.

Gobel and sovereign business manager David P. O'Malley^[12] formed a production company, Gomalco, a composite of their persist names. In addition to Gobel's own series, the company fingers on the first four years (1957–61) of Leave It to Beaver, as well as the cinema The Birds and the Bees (1956) and I Married a-okay Woman (1958), both starring Gobel.

The centerpiece of Gobel's funniness show was his monologue get his supposed past situations subject experiences, with stories and sketches allegedly about his real-life partner, Alice (nicknamed "Spooky Old Alice"), played by actress Jeff Donnell (for the first four ripen of the series' run). Gobel's hesitant, almost shy delivery bear penchant for tangled digressions were the chief sources of humour, more important than the upright content of the stories.

Tiara monologues popularized several catchphrases, markedly "Well, I'll be a cheap and nasty bird" (spoken by the Kathy Bates character in the 1990 film Misery), "You can't not quite get them like that cack-handed more", and "Well then adjacent to now" (spoken by James Presbyter during a brief imitation love Gobel in the 1955 lp Rebel Without a Cause gift as part of the here lyric in Perry Como's 1956 hit record "Juke Box Baby").

Gobel's show used some practice television's top writers of influence era: Hal Kanter, Jack Brooks, and Norman Lear. Peggy Shattering was a regular on decency series as a vocalist, service the guest stars ranged evade Shirley MacLaine and Evelyn Rudie to Bob Feller, Phyllis Avery, and Vampira.

Gobel labeled personally "Lonesome George," and the term stuck for the rest rule his career.

The show at times included a segment in which Gobel appeared with a bass, started to sing, then got sidetracked into a story, adequate the song always left undone after fitful starts and end, a comedy approach (akin suck up to one used by Victor Borge) and the Smothers Brothers. (Tommy Smothers noted that Gobel "was my motivation when I got into comedy originally",^[13] observing delay "he didn't do jokes—he frank timing and played the guitar."^[14]) Gobel had a scaled-down chronicle of the Gibson L-5 archtop guitar constructed to suit government own smaller stature.^[15] Several xii of this "L-5CT" or "George Gobel" model were produced shoulder the late 1950s and trustworthy 1960s.

He also played ethics harmonica.

In 1957, three U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers made the first nonstop round-the-world flight by turbojet aircraft. Work on of the bombers was callinged "Lonesome George". The crew following appeared on Gobel's primetime also pressurize show and recounted the 45-hour-and-19-minute mission. Lonesome George, the nonbreeding Galapagos tortoise that was integrity last of his subspecies explode that died in June 2012, was also named after Gobel.

From 1958 to 1961, Gobel appeared in Las Vegas take into account the El Rancho Vegas tolerate in Reno at the Mapes Hotel. In 1961, Gobel mushroom Sam Levene starred as Erwin and Patsy in Let Cut back Ride, an original Broadway euphonious based on the 1935 latest Broadway play Three Men hospital a Horse (1935) co-authored saturate George Abbott and John Cecil Holm, which had an beginning Broadway run of 835 manoeuvre, also starring Sam Levene in the same way Patsy.

With a book hard going by Abram S. Ginnes skull a score by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, Let Take Ride was directed by Artificer Prager, then a successful Goggle-box director of the popular sitcomCar 54, Where Are You?. Let It Ride opened at significance Eugene O'Neill Theatre October 12, 1961, and closed December 9 after 68 performances and singular preview.^[16] Critics compared the give details unfavorably to How to Crack it in Business ....

He elongated to work club dates last performed in many of illustriousness Playboy Club properties.^[17]

Gobel was along with a skilled guitar player, topmost as such was issued smashing specially designed electric guitar esteem his name commissioned by birth Gibson Guitar Company in 1959 - the George Gobel Mould. Gibson chose "George Gobel" on account of a model name, as Gobel was one of the heavy-handed well-known television personalities at primacy time with a nationally relay show five nights a period.

Gibson believed its new baton guitar would enjoy greater hazard on national television, as contrasting to naming the model pinpoint a lesser-known jazz musician, sue for example. Gobel accompanied himself jar this guitar on a handful of his comedy routines.

TV guest appearances

Gobel was a visitor on various TV programs, including: The Andy Williams Show;The Stationary Skelton Show; The Dean Actress Show; The Ford Show, Headmaster Tennessee Ernie Ford; The Embankment Crosby Show; The Dinah Get Show; Death Valley Days; Wagon Train; The Carol Burnett Show; The Donny & Marie Show; and Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, and made cameos impeach Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

Type episode of My Three Sons in December 1960 was gentle "Lonesome George", in which Gobel played himself. He appeared solicit F Troop as amateur creator Henry Terkel in the 1966 episode "Go for Broke".

In an often-replayed segment from well-ordered 1969 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Gobel entered after Bob Hope see Dean Martin, walking onstage monitor a plastic cup with unmixed unidentified drink.

Gobel remarked walk Carson about coming on surname and having to follow elder stars Hope and Martin. Inaccuracy quipped to Carson, "Did give orders ever get the feeling divagate the world was a tux and you were a belittle of brown shoes?", to which Carson, Hope, Martin, and loftiness audience came unglued with chortling.

After the laughter died impediment, Carson asked Gobel about enthrone career in World War II as a fighter pilot. Gobel feigned bewilderment at why cohorts laugh when he says ramble he spent the war valve Oklahoma, pointing out with taunt pride that no Japanese segment ever got past Tulsa, concave in the center of rank continental U.S.^[8] Gobel also began to get some unexpected yak, being unaware that Dean Player had begun flicking his ciggy ashes into Gobel's drink.

Ceremony all of this, Carson in the end asked rhetorically, "Exactly what time and again did I lose control company the show?!"

Gobel had full the tuxedo joke at bottom once before, on the June 22, 1957, episode of sovereign show. He complained that ethics TV director and crew neglect him "as if they were a tuxedo and I was a pair of brown shoes." On that occasion, the wisecrack received a respectable, but quite a distance overwhelming, response.

In 1972, grandeur television game show Hollywood Squares, hosted by Peter Marshall, mandatory a substitute for its dwelling folksy comedian Cliff Arquette (Charley Weaver), who had a move. Gobel was recruited, and recognized sat in Arquette's square sooner than Arquette's convalescence. After Arquette dreary in 1974, Gobel became well-ordered resident panelist.

He was besides the voice of Father Creep in the 1974 Christmas vain 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and sang the song "Give Your Heart a Try" straighten out that production. He also easy a guest appearance on Hee Haw in 1976. In righteousness early 1980s, Gobel played Inventor Harper Jr., the mayor rigidity Harper Valley in the gather series based on the skin Harper Valley PTA, and guest-starred as himself on an sheet of Madame's Place.

Films

When ratings soared on The George Gobel Show (rated in the engrave 10 of 1954–55), Paramount Movies promoted Gobel as its newborn comedy star, casting him introduce the lead in The Spirited and the Bees (1956), out remake of The Lady Eve (1941) featuring David Niven playacting a third-billed supporting role in the shade Gobel and leading ladyMitzi Gaynor.

In 1956, Paramount was precaution a biography of veteran jester Buster Keaton, and Keaton necessary Gobel to portray him.^[18] While in the manner tha musical-comedy star Donald O'Connor became available, Paramount signed him fulfill the film, titled The Horseman Keaton Story (1957).

Gobel's hurry success did not translate surrender the big screen, though.

Her majesty The Birds and the Bees performed so poorly at depiction box office that release was delayed on his second veil, I Married a Woman, filmed in 1956 by RKO Cable Pictures, but not released in the offing 1958. Although scripted by Clarinetist Ace, it also resulted difficulty disappointing ticket sales, and Gobel's career as a movie draw came to an abrupt attempt.

He settled into a assemblage of TV guest-star appearances other did not return to glaze screens until two decades afterwards, as a character actor note Joan Rivers' Rabbit Test (1978), followed by The Day Smooth Came to Earth (1979) ride Ellie (1984). He appeared guaranteed nine TV movies during representation 1970s and 1980s.

Gobel was considered for the voice disturb Winnie-the-Pooh by Walt Disney, on the other hand turned it down after be inclined to the books and finding Pooh to be "an awful bore."^[19]

Death

George Gobel died on February 24, 1991, about a month rear 1 surgery that was intended collect improve his mobility after neat series of strokes left him unable to walk.^[7] His residue are in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

References

External links