Phil Baker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For Australian rules footballer see Phil Baker (footballer).
Phil Baker (August 26, 1896, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - November 30, 1963, Copenhagen) is best known as a popular American comedian and emcee on radio. Baker was also a vaudeville actor, composer, songwriter, accordionist and author.
Baker went to school in Boston, and his first stage appearance was in a Boston amateur show. Baker began in vaudeville playing the piano for violinist Ed Janis, and he was 19 when he teamed with Ben Bernie for the vaudeville act, "Bernie and Baker."[1] This originally was a serious musical act with Baker on accordion and Bernie on violin but eventually ended up with comic elements. After breaking with Bernie shortly after World War I, both young men went onto pursue successful solo careers. Baker's solo act included him singing, playing the accordion, telling jokes and being heckled by a planted audience member named "Jojo." With this act, Baker played the Palace Theatre in 1930 and 1931.[2]
In 1923, Baker appeared in an early DeForest Phonofilm short A Musical Monologue in which he played the accordion and sang. Bernie also appeared in a DeForest Phonofilm Ben Bernie and All the Lads featuring Bernie's band and pianist Oscar Levant. During World War I Baker served in the US Navy. Baker appeared in a number of Broadway musicals:
- Music Box Revue
- Crazy Quilt
- Artists and Models
- Greenwich Village Follies
- A Night in Spain
- Calling All Stars
Baker appeared in the Carmen Miranda musical The Gang's All Here (1943). Baker's likeness was drawn in caricature by Alex Gard for the walls of Sardi's, the New York City theater district restaurant. That picture is now part of the collection of the New York Public Library. [3]
[edit] Radio
On radio, he starred in his own series The Armour Jester on NBC, and during the 1940s he was the host of the popular quiz show Take It or Leave It, which later changed its title to The $64 Question.
Baker composed many songs, including:
- Park Avenue Strut
- Look At Those Eyes
- Just Suppose
- Antoinette
- Strange Interlude
- Humming a Love Song
- Rainy Day Pal
- Pretty Little Baby
- Did You Mean It?
- My Heaven on Earth
- Invitation to a Broken Heart
[edit] Notes
- ^ Laurie, Joe, Jr. Vaudeville: From the Honky-tonks to the Palace. New York: Henry Holt, 1953. p. 86.
- ^ Slide, Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1994. p. 21.
- ^ The New York Public Library Inventory of Sardi's Caricatures
