Olsen and Johnson

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Olsen and Johnson was a famous US -amerikanisches comedy duo consisting of Ole Olsen (1892-1963) and Chic Johnson (1891-1962).

Olsen and Johnson, actually both musicians, met in Chicago in 1914 when they were in the same band (Olsen on violin, Johnson on piano). When the band broke up, they began their joint careers in small vaudeville clubs . With Ernest Breuer they wrote the song Oh! Gee, Oh! Gosh, oh! I'm in love .

They were soon known and successful regionally and also had appearances on radio shows. In 1930 they were hired by Warner Bros. for the film. Their crazy stage humor, their musical clowning, for which they were famous, could not be implemented there. They continued their stage and radio work.

In 1938 they achieved their greatest success on Broadway with Hellzapoppin ' , a revue that was performed a total of 1404 times by 1941 and then made into a film. The film also met with great approval from the audience and lukewarm enthusiasm from the critics. Also in 1938, Olsen and Johnson produced the Revue Streets of Paris , in which the comedian duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello ( Abbott and Costello ) were introduced to Broadway audiences for the first time. The Broadway shows Sons o 'Fun (1941) and Laffing Room Only (1944) followed, both of which were much less successful.

Olsen and Johnson could not repeat their successes achieved on stage and in film afterwards. After their last film See My Lawyer (1945), they tried to gain a foothold on television. The television show Fireball Fun-For-All (1949) was a failure, as was the Broadway show Pardon Our French . Olsen and Johnson continued to appear in Las Vegas until Chic Johnson's illness in the late 1950s .

Chic Johnson died in 1962, and Ole Olsen a year later. Both were buried side by side in Las Vegas.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1930: Oh, Sailor Behave!
  • 1931: Fifty Million Frenchmen
  • 1931: Gold Dust Gertie
  • 1937: Country Gentlemen
  • 1937: All Over Town
  • 1941: Hellzapoppin '( The devil is loose in hell! )
  • 1943: Crazy House
  • 1944: Ghost Catchers
  • 1945: See My Lawyer

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