Frank Fay

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Fay (* 17th November 1891 in San Francisco , California as Francis Anthony Donner ; † 25. September 1961 in Santa Monica , California) was an American actor and comedian . He was at times one of the most popular vaudeville - Entertainer of the USA and Star had several comedies, but also made time and again by his escapades headlines.

life and career

The rise to stage star

Frank Fay, born into an Irish Catholic family, was a child in Victor Herbert's operetta Babes in Toyland . After moderately successful beginnings, he celebrated significant success as a stage comedian from the late 1910s. As master of ceremonies, he led the program at the Palace Theater in New York for years, the then most popular vaudeville theater in the USA. Sometimes Fay's occasional biting announcements from the other actors already decided how their performances would be received by the audience. In the 1920s, Fay was considered one of the greatest and most talented stars of vaudeville, he could charge up to 18,000 US dollars a week for his performances.

With his comic style, which relied on interaction with the audience, perfect timing, sharp-tongued slogans and personal charm, he is considered one of the pioneers of stand-up comedy . Fay's concept of simply going on stage in his tuxedo and telling funny stories while standing was revolutionary at the time and far removed from the slapstick comedy that was common at the time. Gimmicks that were taken for granted at the time, such as stage requests or strange clothing, were superfluous for him. Well-known entertainers such as Jack Benny , Bob Hope , Milton Berle and Jack Paar named him as an influence on their own work as a comedian.

Hollywood and the marriage to Barbara Stanwyck

With the advent of talkies , Fay was hired by Warner Brothers in 1929 . With leading roles in several comedies, he briefly became a film star in 1930. In the movies, he often played the charming lover who joked about risky subjects like sex or homosexuality at the time. However, Fay was unable to transport his stage success into the film business in a comparable way. After the failure of his 1932 film A Fool's Advice , he was mostly limited to supporting roles in his later cinema appearances .

Fay was married three times, whereby he owes a large part of his current fame to his second marriage to the later film icon Barbara Stanwyck . When the couple married in 1928, Fay was already a theater star and the young actress Stanwyck was much less well known. But during the marriage this relationship turned: Fay was considered to be an ex-star after A Fool's Advice at the latest , while Stanwyck had her big breakthrough at the same time - also thanks to Fay, through whose commitment she got her first good film role in Ladies of Leisure . Stanwyck publicly stood by her husband for a long time and called himself “Mrs. Frank Fay “although the marriage was marked by Fay's alcoholism and outbursts of violence. The turbulent marriage was one of the main inspirations for the 1937 released film A Star Is Born (A Star is Born) with Fredric March in the male lead of the alcoholic ex-Stars Norman Maine , the few traits of Fay had. Remakes of A Star is Born in 1954 , 1976 and 2018 have kept the subject's popularity up to the present. But while in the films the marriage is always ended by the suicide of the male main character, Stanwyck and Fay divorced in 1935. Stanwyck won the custody battle over their son, whom they adopted in 1932.

Late life

After his failure in Hollywood, things calmed down around Frank Fay, who for some time largely withdrew from the public eye. He starred in the 1943 B-movie war comedy Spotlight Scandals , produced by Monogram Pictures , with Billy Gilbert , but the hoped-for comeback did not materialize. He succeeded in doing one of these on Broadway, however : from 1944 onwards he played the leading role of Elwood P. Dowd , an eccentric with an invisible rabbit as his best friend, in the first production of Mein Freund Harvey . The comedy became a hit and Fay's last big hit. In the 1950 film adaptation , James Stewart and not Fay took on the role of Elwood.

During this time, Fay hit the headlines with his sympathies for fascism . Contemporaries described him not only as an often unfriendly and difficult to get along personality, but also as a die-hard racist and anti-Semite. His Jewish comedian colleague Milton Berle remembered that Fay had insulted him several times because he belonged to Judaism, whereupon he once hit Fay with a stage pole. Fay also supported American Nazi sympathizers like Charles Coughlin . In January 1946, Fay organized a demonstration of over 10,000 right-wing extremists under the name Friends of Frank Fay at Madison Square Garden together with Franco supporters , Ku Klux Klan members and the American Nazi Party .

In 1950, in his hometown of San Francisco, he starred in a self-produced revue under the name If You Please . The following year he played his last film role as a marriage swindler in the romantic comedy Love Nest , in which the young Marilyn Monroe also participated. There were still a few television appearances in the 1950s, but otherwise the aging comedian became quiet. Shortly before his death, he was declared insane due to depression and poor physique. He died of a ruptured aorta at the age of 69 in a Santa Monica hospital .

On the Hollywood Walk of Fame , two stars in the film and radio categories commemorate Frank Fay.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Victoria Wilson: A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 . Simon and Schuster, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4391-9406-5 ( google.de [accessed December 31, 2020]).
  2. ↑ a b c d The Fascist Stand-Up Comic by Kliph Nesteroff. Accessed December 31, 2020 .
  3. ↑ AM New York Metro: Father to Hope, Carson, Leno and Letterman. Retrieved December 31, 2020 (American English).
  4. ^ Ron Fassler: Fabled and Forgotten Frank Fay. January 9, 2020, accessed December 31, 2020 .
  5. ^ Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly: Vaudeville old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performances in America . Psychology Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2 ( google.de [accessed December 31, 2020]).
  6. ↑ a b Time Inc: LIFE . Time Inc, January 8, 1945 ( google.de [accessed December 31, 2020]).
  7. ↑ Carla Valderrama: This Was Hollywood: Forgotten Stars and Stories . Running Press, 2020, ISBN 978-0-7624-9585-6 ( google.de [accessed December 31, 2020]).
  8. ↑ Barbara Stanwyck: A femme fatale destroyed by love. June 14, 2009, accessed December 31, 2020 .
  9. ↑ The Broadway League: Harvey - Broadway Play - Original | IBDB. Retrieved February 9, 2021 .
  10. ^ Joseph Foster: Frank Fay \ 's Fascist Friends, by Joseph Foster, THE NEW MASSES. Accessed December 31, 2020 .
  11. ^ Media History Digital Library Media History Digital Library: Variety (February 1946) . New York, NY: Variety Publishing Company, 1946 ( archive.org [accessed December 31, 2020]).
  12. ↑ Frank Fay at the Los Angeles Times. Accessed December 31, 2020 (English).
  13. ↑ Desert Sun September 27, 1961 - California Digital Newspaper Collection. Accessed December 31, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Fay, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Donner, Francis Anthony (maiden name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION American actor and comedian
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco , California , United States
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1961
Place of death Santa Monica , California , United States