Articles

Originally published in “Twenty Complete Stories – New Players and Old Hollywood”
June 1942

The Care and Feeding of Abbott & Costello

Life is smooth for Abbott and Costello. Professionally they’re sitting on top of the world and domestically they’re in the hands of two super-efficient housewives -€“ Mrs. Abbott and Mrs. Lou Costello.

It’€™s no slander against Betty Abbott and Ann Costello to classify them as the second-best managers in their respective households; merely an acknowledgment of the superior skill of their mates. They don’€™t have to try.

Costello, the small soprano apple dumpling of the comedy team, the guy who can’t get anything right on the screen of over the microphone, is a managerial genius in private life.Read More »The Care and Feeding of Abbott & Costello

Fred Allen’€™s Heirs: Costello and Abbott Given Summer Spot  (originally published in  Newsweek  – July 1, 1940)

With Fred Allen leaving the air this week. * Ipana-Sal Hepatica decided to cut its NBC Red network time from an hour to a half hour (still starting at 9 o’clock EDT Wednesdays) and two months ago began looking for breezy talent to fill the breach for the summer. What they got was a popular pair of wacky vaudevillians, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Read More »Fred Allen’s Heirs: Costello and Abbott Given Summer Spot

(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.

Read More »The Feud of Abbott and Costello

Read More »Introduction to Abbott and Costello, famous comedy team

Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot
(originally published in Screen Stories, June 1960)

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.

Read More »Bud Abbott: the man everyone forgot!

(originally published in Journal of Living, January 1954)

Lou Costello: My Cure For Sorrow, As told to Vivian Cosby

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.

Read More »My cure for sorrow, by Lou Costello