Gerardo Luigi "Jerry" Colonna (September 17, 1904 – November 22, 1986) was an American musician, actor, comedian, singer, songwriter and trombonist best remembered as the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks in Hope's popular radio shows and films of the 1940s and 1950s.
With his pop-eyed facial expressions and walrus-sized handlebar moustache, Colonna was known for singing loudly "in a comic caterwaul," according to Raised on Radio author Gerald Nachman, and for his catchphrase, "Who's Yehudi?," uttered after many an old joke, although it usually had nothing to do with the joke. The line was believed to be named for violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, and the search for Yehudi became a running gag on the Hope show.
Colonna played a range of nitwitted characters, the best-remembered of which was a moronic professor. Nachman wrote:
Colonna brought a whacked-out touch to Hope's show. In a typical exchange, Hope asks, "Professor, did you plant the bomb in the embassy like I told you?," to which Colonna replied, in that whooping five-alarm voice, "Embassy? Great Scott, I thought you said NBC!"
Musical madness
Colonna started his career as a trombonist in orchestras and dance bands in and around his native Boston; he can be heard with Joe Herlihy's orchestra on discs recorded for Edison Records in the late 1920s. During the 1930s, Colonna played with the CBS house orchestra, the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, and developed a reputation for prankishness. During his tenure at CBS he occasionally worked under bandleader Raymond Scott, and made several recordings with Scott's famous Quintette which involved Colonna mouthing nonsense syllables over Scott's band. His off-stage antics were so calamitous that CBS nearly fired him on more than one occasion. Fred Allen, then on CBS, gave Colonna periodic guest slots, and a decade later he joined the John Scott Trotter band on Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall.
In an opera parody, Colonna hollered an aria "in a deadpan screech that became his trademark on Bob Hope's show, Nachman noted. Colonna was one of three memorable 1940s Kraft Music Hall discoveries. The others were pianist-comedian Victor Borge and Trotter's drummer, music "depreciationist" Spike Jones.
Colonna had the ability to stretch a syllable to extreme lengths. In addition to songs (such as "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall, or nothing at aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall..."), he worked this bit into Road to Rio along with another of his catchphrases. The action periodically cuts to a cavalry riding to the rescue of Bing and Bob. At one point he exhorts his riders, "Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarge!" At the end of the film, when all is resolved and he is still "charging," he pulls up and tells the audience, "Well, what do you know... we never quite made it. Exciting, though... wasn't it?!"
According to radio historian Arthur Frank Wertheim, in Radio Comedy, Colonna was responsible for many of the catchphrases on Hope's show, notably, "Give me a drag on that before you throw it away," a crack the cast came to use to lance any bragging. Colonna's usual salutation to Hope was, "Greetings, Gate!" and listeners soon began saying it.
Colonna was part of several of Hope's early USO tours during the 1940s. Jack Benny's singing sidekick Dennis Day, a talented impressionist as well as a singer, did an effective imitation of Colonna's manic style and expressions.
Colonna joined ASCAP in 1956; his songwriting credits include "At Dusk," "I Came to Say Goodbye," "Sleighbells in the Sky," and "Take Your Time." In the 1950s he released two LPs, Music? for Screaming!!! (Decca DL 5540) and He Sings and Swings (Mercury-Wing MGW 12153).
Films
Colonna featured in three of the popular Hope-Crosby Road films: Road to Singapore (1940) as Achilles Bombassa, Road to Rio (1947) as a Cavalry captain and The Road to Hong Kong (1962) in a cameo role. He can also be seen in the Fred Allen vehicle, It's in the Bag! (1945), as psychiatrist Dr. Greenglass, and he made a brief appearance with Hope in the "Wife, Husband and Wolf" sketch in Star Spangled Rhythm. In 1956 he performed the featured song "My Lucky Charm" in the film Meet Me in Las Vegas, starring Dan Dailey and Cyd Charisse.
He provided the voice of the March Hare in the Walt Disney animated film version of Alice in Wonderland (1951) (another radio legend, Ed Wynn, voiced the Mad Hatter) and also lent his zany narration style to several Disney shorts, including Casey at the Bat (1946) and The Brave Engineer (1950).
Filmography
Command Performance (1937)
52nd Street (1937) as Specialty Vocalist
Rosalie (1937) as Joseph
College Swing (1938) as Prof. Yascha Koloski (uncredited)
Port of Seven Seas (1938) as Arab Rug Dealer (uncredited)
Little Miss Broadway (1938) as Member of Band
Valley of the Giants (1938) as Saloon Singer
Garden on the Moon (1938) as Musician
Swingtime in the Movies (1938) as The Texas Tornado
Sweepstakes Winner (1939) as Nick, the Chef
Naughty but Nice (1939) as Allie Gray
Road to Singapore (1940) as Achilles Bombanassa
Comin' Round the Mountain (1940) as Argyle Phifft
Melody and Moonlight (1940) as Abner Kellogg
You're the One (1941) as Dr. Colonna
Sis Hopkins (1941) as Professor
Ice-Capades (1941) as Colonna
Hollywood Steps Out (1941)
The Ducktators (1942)
Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) as Colonna - Bob Hope Skit
True to the Army (1942) as Pvt. 'Pinky' Fothergill
Priorities on Parade (1942) as Jeep Jackson
Ice-Capades Revue (1942) as Theophilus J. Twitchell
The Hep Cat (1942)
The Wise Quacking Duck (1943)
What's Cookin' Doc? (1944)
Atlantic City (1944) as The Professor
It's in the Bag! (1945) as Dr. Greengrass - Psychiatrist
Daffy Doodles (1946)
Make Mine Music (1946) as Narrator (segment "Casey at the Bat") (voice)
A Pest in the House (1947)
Road to Rio (1947) as Colonna
Kentucky Jubilee (1951) as Jerry Harris
The Brave Engineer (1950)
Alice in Wonderland (1951) as March Hare (voice)
Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) as Jerry Colonna - MC at Silver Springs
Pinocchio (1957) as Ringmaster
Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958) as Doc
The Road to Hong Kong (1962) as Man Looking for a Match (uncredited)
Remember... Dreams Come True
Swinging on a Star
One Hour in Wonderland
The Brave Engineer
Plane Daffy
Who's Yehoodi?
Greetings Bait
Crazy Cruise
Super Circus
Television
Colonna left the Hope show as a regular in 1950, but he continued appearing with Hope on holiday television specials and live shows. He hosted his own television comedy series, The Jerry Colonna Show, which lasted a single season.
He was host of the "Revenge with Music" episode on The Colgate Comedy Hour in 1954. His TV work also included serving as the second and last ringmaster/host/performer on Super Circus (1955–56), The Gale Storm Show (1959), a version of Babes in Toyland on Shirley Temple's Storybook in 1960 and a guest role as Dr. Mann in "Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth," a 1966 episode of The Monkees. Jerry Colonna also appeared in a 1965 episode of McHale's Navy. In the episode "Hello McHale?-Colonna" McHale's men meet the famous WWII troubadour who promises to do a show for them at their Taratupa base. However, when the men learn that shows are limited to bases that have a 50-bed hospital, they take steps to correct the shortage. This disrupts Captain Binghamton's base hospital inspection by the Admiral who is looking for overcrowded hospitals and malingering patients, thereby putting Binghamton in the hot seat again.
Colonna also appeared in one of the oldest surviving kinescope recordings of a live television broadcast, from 1947.[1]
Personal life
Colonna married Florence Purcell, whom he reportedly met on a blind date in 1930; the couple adopted a son, Robert, in 1941. The marriage lasted 56 years. After his guest shot on The Monkees, Colonna suffered a stroke. Its paralytic effect forced his retirement from show business (save for a couple of brief cameo appearances in late '60s/early '70s Bob Hope specials), and a 1979 heart attack forced him to spend the last seven years of his life in the Motion Picture and Television Hospital. Florence stayed by his side to the end, when he died of kidney failure in 1986. She died eight years later at the same hospital.
Jerry Colonna is buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery.
Colonna's great-great niece is American stand-up comedian Sarah Colonna.[2] It is not known if he was related to the Italian Colonna family of nobles.
Popular culture references
Colonna was a popular radio and film figure at the same time that Warner Bros. cartoons hit their stride. Accordingly, his facial expressions and catchphrases were often caricatured in the cartoons. Along with "Greetings, Gates!" variations and references to "Yehudi," there was his oft-used observation, "Ah, yes! [appropriate adjective], isn't it?!"
The Warner cartoons The Wacky Worm and Greetings Bait both star a worm who is a Colonna caricature, complete with moustache and exaggerated voice (supplied by Mel Blanc). The latter cartoon also features an animated human Colonna as a fisherman.
In What's Cookin' Doc?, Bugs Bunny is saying "Hi" to various (unseen) Hollywood figures as they walk by his table at the Oscar banquet, and Bugs mimics them. At one point he bugs his eyes, opens his mouth wide to display squared-off, gapped teeth, and says, "Ah! Greetings, Jerry!"
In the 1946 Warner Bros. cartoon Daffy Doodles, a jury of Jerry Colonnas delivers the verdict "Ahhhhhhh yes! Not guilty!" at Daffy's trial. Jerry Colonna was one of the party going celebrities in the Warner cartoon Hollywood Steps Out.
In 1999, Jeff MacKay portrayed Colonna in the JAG episode "Ghosts of Christmas Past."
Colonna was mentioned in Jack Kerouac's 1950s novel On the Road.
In the 1943 Warner Bros. Daffy Duck cartoon The Wise Quacking Duck, he imitates Colonna as a fortune teller.
In the 1944 Warner Bros. cartoon Slightly Daffy, a Native American warrior, mimicking Colonna, threatens cavalry soldier Porky Pig with "Greetings Gate, let's scalpitate."
In the 1944 Warner Bros. cartoon Plane Daffy, after his second electrifying kiss with Hatta Mari, Daffy imitates Colonna: "Ahhhhhhh yes! Something new has been added!"
In the 1950 Warner Bros. cartoon Rabbit Every Monday, Bugs Bunny utters Colonna's trademark phrase "I don't ask questions; I just have fun!"
References
1. "The Paley Center for Media". Paleycenter.org. 1947-01-22.
2. Blair, Iain (July 24, 2012). "Colonna: Latenight scribe shares ‘Life’ lessons". Variety.
Gerald Nachman, Raised on Radio (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998).
Arthur Frank Wertheim, Radio Comedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
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