The most famous of all of Abbott and Costello’s routines, Who’s on First? had been performed countless times in vaudeville and on radio, as well as a shortened version of it in their first movie, One Night in the Tropics, with the longer, definitive version (shown here) filmed in The Naughty Nineties.
Who’s on First? script
(originally published in TV Forecast and Guide, March 7, 1953)
One of the worst kept secrets in show business a few years back was the backstage feuding of the top comedy team of Abbott and Costello. It seemed hard to believe that the finely balanced pair could be anything but the best of friends. Yet the evidence was there.
It burst out in the open in 1945. Rotund Lou Costello, the buffoon of the team, suddenly charges in the public prints that Bud Abbott was a drunk.
The Feud of Abbott and Costello
Gray-haired Bud Abbott stared bleakly out of his breakfast-room window, at the brown, untended lawn and grounds of his Encino, California home. Although it was past noon, he still wore his bedroom slippers, pajamas and white flannel robe. Why get dressed? He had no place to go, no job to do.
Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot!
(originally published in Journal of Living, January 1954)
A funny man’s prescription for grief that can work for everyone as it has for him.
“Why did this have to happen to me?”
A few years ago, when I was stricken with rheumatic fever, this question kept repeating itself in my mind. As I lay in bed week after week, I searched for the answer. And what made it all the more bewildering was that I had become ill while making a tour to raise charity funds. While striving to help others, I had been stricken myself. Why? The more I thought about it, the more sorry I became for myself.
My cure for sorrow, by Lou Costello
I think I’m a pretty lucky guy to be alive to tell this story.
With more than a half a year in bed spent grimly facing the terrifying prospect that I might never walk again, I found myself suddenly projected into a new world. A world that I never knew existed until then. And because I had never before come in contact with sickness and disaster, I suddenly saw a lot of things for the first time – things that before had meant very little to me.
Some people are said to have show business in their blood – in Bud Abbott’s case, it’s almost literally true. Abbott’s mother was a bareback rider for the Ringling Brothers Circus. And his father worked as an advance man for the same circus. Bud Abbot was born and raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and was smitten with the performing bug at an early age. He dropped out of school at the age of 14 and began working in carnivals. Later he began working in theaters across the country, eventually becoming the manager of the Nation Theater in Detroit. While there, Abbott began performing on stage as straight man to vaudeville performers. This led to a chance encounter that changed his life.
Bud Abbott biography
Simply put, streaming audio of some of Abbott and Costello‘s classic radio comedy. It includes 50 episodes of their classic radio show.
Abbott & Costello 50+ Vintage Comedy Radio Episodes