In addition to salt water taffy, the diving horse at Steel Pier, and the Miss America Pageant, Atlantic City will forever be known as the town where one of the most successful comedy teams in entertainment history, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, first teamed up. However, that famed duo was not the first comedy team to perform in Atlantic City, and certainly not the last.
Given that Atlantic City, for decades, was one of the major entertainment centers of the country, comics and comedy teams flocked to the Boardwalk in search of performance opportunities. Some of those teams became legends in show business. Others are long forgotten.
Possibly the earliest record of an Atlantic City performance by a comedy team that would reach stardom in the future came in June of 1907. Brothers Groucho Marx and Gummo Marx, along with vocalist Mabel O’Donnell, performed as “Ned Weyburn’s Nightingales” at the Atlantic Garden, which may have actually been the Garden Pier on the Boardwalk. Evidently, this was the first, paying job that the Marx Brothers—at least two of them, anyway—ever had.
The long-forgotten team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were quite popular on stage and on screen in the 1920s and 1930s. The team actually made around 21 films for RKO, and the only thing that put an end to their stellar career was the death of Woolsey in 1938. The pair performed often at Atlantic City’s Million Dollar Pier, and interestingly, in their 1935 film short titled “Alibi Bye Bye,” the team played photographers working in Atlantic City.
The madcap duo of Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson were best known for starring in Broadway’s “Hellzapoppin’,” but they starred at the Steel Pier and other shore area venues throughout their long career. Like Wheeler and Woolsey, Olsen and Johnson made a number of films, with their final one being in 1957. Their off-the-wall mayhem was perfect for early television. They starred briefly in their own series and appeared often on NBC’s “All-Star Revue.”
The comedy of Laurel and Hardy is timeless and the unique duo still has thousands of fans today. Given their hectic, film-making schedule, the duo performed at the Steel Pier only once or twice. However, their 1931 film short, “Be Big!” featured Stan and Ollie as husbands who feign sickness in order to get out of a trip to Atlantic City their wives had planned. Their plan was to go to a stag party. In real life, Laurel and Hardy, demonstrating their fondness for Atlantic City, served as Grand Marshalls for something called a “Variety Parade,” described as “a star-studded Boardwalk spectacle,” that took place in 1941.
The Ritz Brothers—Harry, Jimmy and Al—were a bit hipper than the early teams, which enabled them to play both the family-oriented Steel Pier and the more adult 500 Club. The brothers appeared in almost 20 motion pictures, appeared often on early television, and were the first comedy team ever to appear regular in Las Vegas. The brothers, minus Al, who passed in 1965, worked regularly until around 1976.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello often credited the Steel Pier as the venue that made them stars. They first appeared there as almost virtual unknowns in 1936. They drew a good crowd, likely as a result of their stints on Kate Smith’s radio show, when they returned in 1938. Three years later at the Pier, when their hit film, “One Night in the Tropics” was released, the response was gigantic. They came back to the Pier again in 1944, and their last known appearance took place a year later.
The story of the meeting of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis has been told in these pages and elsewhere often. For the record, their first appearance as a comedy team took place at the 500 Club on July 25, 1946. As the story goes, Jerry was bombing at the club as a single act, pantomiming to famous recordings. He needed help and suggested that the club bring in singer Dean Martin from New York, with the promise that they both did “some funny stuff” together. What they did was largely improvised. Caught that night by entertainer Sophie Tucker, who was headlining in the rear part of the 500 that night, she predicted that the team would be big stars. The record books show that she was correct.
When The Three Stooges—Moe, Larry and Curly–were major attractions, they appeared on the Boardwalk several times, including a 1936 visit to Million Dollar Pier, a 1938 stint at the Steel Pier, on Garden Pier a year later as a part of the “George White’s Scandals” revue, and Labor Day Weekend shows at the Pier in the summers of 1941 and 1942. After being fired from Columbia Pictures after 23 years of service filming 190 film shorts, the Stooges staged one of the most remarkable comebacks in show business history. When their old shorts were released to television, kids discovered them for the first time and clamored to see them in person. This lead to personal appearances, with Joe DeRita in tow as the third stooge, seven full-length motion pictures, and two, wildly-received returns to the Steel Pier in 1959 and 1960.
Though Dan Rowan and Dick Martin are best known for their “Laugh-In” television show, which ran from 1967 to 1973, the team had been around much longer than that. They first teamed up not long after World War II, and their club work was well received enough to get the interest of Hollywood producers, who pegged the team to star in the 1958 turkey, “Once Upon a Horse.” They knocked around the nightclub scene, which included frequent appearances at the 500 Club, until they finally hit the real big time with what would be called “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” That show actually began as a one-time special, said to be filmed in Atlantic City with Barbara (“Get Smart”) Feldon as guest star and broadcast September 9, 1967.
After 140 episodes, “Laugh-In” was cancelled, with the last broadcast being on March 12, 1973. Though no, formal split of the team was ever announced, Rowan and Martin, save for a couple of television reunions in 1981 and in 1986—the year before Dan Rowan’s passing—they never worked together again.
They didn’t have to.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
