Louis Francis Cristillo, known by the stage name Lou Costello, was an American actor and
comedian best remembered for the comedy double act of Abbott and Costello, with Bud Abbott.
Costello played a chubby, bumbling character.
He was known for the catchphrases "Heeeeyyy, Abbott!" and "I'm a baaaaad boy!"
Early life Costello was born Louis Francis Cristillo
on March 6, 1906, in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Helen and Sebastiano Cristillo.
His father was Italian and his mother was an American of Italian, French, and Irish
ancestry.
He attended School 15 in Paterson, NJ, and was considered a gifted athlete.
He excelled in basketball and reportedly was once the New Jersey state free throw champion,
in which he performs all his own tricky hoop shots without special effects).
He also fought as a boxer under the name "Lou King".
He took his professional name from actress Helene Costello.
Family On January 30, 1934, Costello married Anne
Battler, a burlesque dancer.
Their first child, Patricia "Paddy" Costello, was born in 1936, followed by Carole on December
23, 1938, and Lou Jr. on November 6, 1942.
On August 15, 1947, their last child, Christine, was born.
Career As a young man, Costello was a great admirer
of silent movie great Charlie Chaplin, and in 1927 Costello went to Hollywood to become
an actor, but could only find work as a laborer or extra at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner
Brothers, including MGM's The Fair Co-Ed.
His athletic skill brought him occasional work as a stunt man, notably in The Trail
of '98.
He can also be spotted sitting ringside in the Laurel and Hardy film The Battle of the
Century.
Burlesque and Bud Abbott In 1930, discouraged by his lack of success,
he hitchhiked back home but ran out of money in Saint Joseph, Missouri during the Great
Depression.
There he changed his stage name to "Costello", after actress Helene Costello, and convinced
a local burlesque theater owner to let him perform, taking the stage as a Dutch-accented
comic.
Soon after, he went back to New York and began working in vaudeville and burlesque theaters
there.
While Costello was working in vaudeville, he met a talented straight man named Bud Abbott.
Abbott pitched the idea of teaming up, and after working together sporadically, Abbott
and Costello formally teamed up in 1936.
Reportedly, their first disagreement as a performing team was over billing.
Lou Costello wanted top billing, but Bud Abbott pointed out the vaudeville tradition of the
straight man's name appearing first on the bill, and Costello went along.
They performed together in burlesque shows, minstrel shows, vaudeville and movie houses.
In 1938 came the second major disagreement between the comedy partners.
The duo received an offer to appear for 10 weeks at the Pantages Theater, considered
at the time to be the pinnacle of vaudeville success, and would give them the chance to
perform in front of major talent scouts from the radio and film industries.
Costello wanted to accept the offer, but they were already booked at other theaters during
that time, and Bud Abbott was concerned that they would anger theater owners across the
country by cancelling their tour, and would be unemployable when their stint at Pantages
was over.
Costello wanted to break out of vaudeville into other areas, and was convinced this was
their shot at the "big-time".
As an inducement to the hesitant Abbott, Costello offered him 60% of their Pantages salary,
which, after Abbott's wife encouraged her husband to take the risk, he accepted.
Radio and Hollywood The Pantages gamble paid off, and Abbott and
Costello were signed by the William Morris talent agency.
Seeking to enlarge the duo's stature by putting them on the radio, they received national
exposure for the first time in 1938, by becoming featured cast members on The Kate Smith Hour,
a popular variety show.
Before appearing on the show, Bud Abbott's friend, comedy screenwriter John Grant, was
hired to rework some standard vaudeville routines that every stage comic of the day performed,
to better fit the duo's performance style.
Some of the classic Abbott and Costello bits that resulted from Grant's work were "Loan
Me $50", "Mudder/Fodder", and their signature routine, "Who's on First?"
The duo became associated with the latter routine, in which Abbott enumerated the names
of a mythical baseball team, whose members have nicknames of "Who" who plays first base,
"What" on second base and "I don't know" on third, etc.
This confounds Costello when they are addressed simply as "Who", "What" and "I don't know".
They were hugely successful on the Smith program, which led their appearance in a Broadway play
in 1939, The Streets of Paris.That same year they were signed to a movie contract with
Universal Pictures.
They only had supporting roles in their first picture, One Night in the Tropics, but stole
the film with their classic routines, including a much-shortened version of "Who's On First?".
In another baseball-related word-play routine "Slaughter the Baseball Player", they are
looking to buy a baseball bat and the one available was made for Enos Slaughter, and
the more sadistic "Ninth Inning Steal" routine in which Bud and Lou rob an unsuspecting person
by distracting him with a sensational baseball game recounting, unaware that someone else
has already robbed the intended target using the same distraction.
A modified version of the "Ninth Inning Steal" is shown in the movie Pardon My Sarong when
bus drivers Bud and Lou try to steal gas from a gas station attendant.
The team's breakthrough picture, however, was Buck Privates, released early in 1941.
They immediately became the top-ranking comedy stars in Hollywood and fans looked forward
to each of their pictures as a major event.
Most moviegoers had never seen the duo's burlesque routines, and so their dated but hilarious
material seemed fresh.
Many of their films cast them as bumbling servicemen such as In The Navy and Keep 'Em
Flying.
Fame The duo made 36 films between 1940 and 1956,
and were among the most popular and highest-paid entertainers in the world during World War
II.
Among their most popular films are Buck Privates, Hold That Ghost, Who Done It?, Pardon My Sarong,
The Time of Their Lives, Buck Privates Come Home, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man.
The team also appeared on radio throughout the 1940s.
On October 8, 1942, the team launched their own weekly show on NBC sponsored by Camel
cigarettes.
In March 1943, after completing Hit the Ice, Costello had an attack of rheumatic fever
and was unable to work for six months.
On November 4 of that year he returned to the team's popular radio show, but a tragic
event overshadowed his comeback.
Upon arriving at the NBC studio, Lou received word that his infant son Lou Jr. had accidentally
drowned in the family pool.
The baby was just two days short of his first birthday.
Lou had asked his wife to keep Butch up that night so the boy could hear his father on
the radio for the first time.
Rather than cancel the broadcast, Lou said, "Wherever he is tonight, I want him to hear
me," and went on with the show.
No one in the audience knew of the death until after the show when Bud Abbott explained the
events of the day, and how the phrase "The show must go on" had been epitomized by Lou
that night.
Costello's close friends, The Andrews Sisters said that his entire demeanor changed after
the death of his son.
It was about this time that serious cracks began to appear in the relationship between
Abbott and Costello.
Lou Costello was a very competitive person who hated that his success came as part of
a team, and made light of Abbott's contribution to the act, many times saying publicly that
he could be just as funny without Bud Abbott, which the latter bitterly resented.
Costello's on-stage childlike demeanor concealed an aggressive personality, and he constantly
battled the studio, in addition to Abbott.
Costello's resentment had a long memory and even though they were by this time two of
the most wealthy people in Hollywood, Costello still bore a grudge at having to give Abbott
60% of their Pantages salary years earlier.
He insisted that all future earnings for the pair from the studio be split 60–40, with
Costello receiving the 60% share.
He also renewed his billing objection, demanding that Universal give him top billing.
Universal refused his demand to reverse the billing, stating that it had hired Abbott
and Costello, not Costello and Abbott.
They upped Costello's salary, not to the 60–40 arrangement Costello was seeking, but he was
making more than Abbott, which caused additional friction between the partners.
In 1945, when Costello fired a domestic servant, and Abbott immediately hired the person, Costello
announced that he no longer wished to work with Abbott.
They were still under contract to Universal, however and were required to complete two
movies in 1946, in which they rarely appeared on screen together.
Abbott and Costello by now were not speaking to one another at all off-camera.
A year later, Bud Abbott reached out to heal their relationship, suggesting that the foundation
Costello had founded be named the Lou Costello Jr.
Youth Foundation, which touched Lou Costello deeply.
Their radio program moved to ABC from 1947–49.
In 1951 the duo became one of the rotating hosts of The Colgate Comedy Hour and the following
year they inaugurated their own situation comedy, The Abbott and Costello Show.
Costello owned the half-hour series, with Abbott working on salary.
The show, which was loosely adapted from their radio program, ran for two seasons, from 1952
to 1954, but found a new life as syndicated reruns.
They were forced to withdraw from Fireman Save My Child in 1954 due to Costello's poor
health—he had been plagued by heart problems all his life due to a childhood bout of rheumatic
fever—and were replaced by lookalikes Hugh O'Brian and Buddy Hackett.
They were dropped by Universal the following year.
Costello was surprised and honored by Ralph Edwards on NBC's This Is Your Life in 1956.
Lou and Abbott split up By the mid-1950s Abbott and Costello films
were no longer box-office gold, and after a failure to come to terms with the team,
Universal dropped their movie contract in 1955.
With radio, film, and television vehicles, they suffered from overexposure, and the team
of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were the new hot entertainment commodity that Abbott and
Costello had been a decade earlier.
In 1956, after troubles with the Internal Revenue Service forced both men to sell off
their large homes and the rights to some of their films, Abbott and Costello made their
final film together, an independent film production called Dance With Me, Henry.
The film sought to be something other than the pure slapstick vehicles that audiences
were accustomed to, and the film was a box-office disappointment and received mixed critical
reviews.
Abbott and Costello formally dissolved their partnership in July 1957,and Costello then
pursued a solo stand up career, including stints in Las Vegas, and sought out film projects
for himself.
He appeared several times on Steve Allen's fledgling television show, The Tonight Show
but most often in variations of his old routines, with Louis Nye or Tom Poston taking on the
straight man role.
Costello sought to be known as something other than the funny fat man in the baggy clothes,
and played a dramatic role on television's Wagon Train.
Death
After making the film, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, Costello died of a heart attack
at Doctors' Hospital in Beverly Hills on March 3, 1959, three days before his 53rd birthday.
A funeral Mass was held at his parish, St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Sherman
Oaks.
He is interred at the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.
His last words as reported in the March 4, 1959 Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Evening
Mirror News were "I think I'll be more comfortable," according to a private nurse who was the only
person in the room with him at the time.
The widely reported claim that he died in the presence of friends and that his last
words were actually "that was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted" appears to be incorrect,
although the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Evening Mirror News articles both note Costello
eating a strawberry ice-cream soda earlier that day in the presence of his manager Eddie
Sherman, making it possible that the quoted statement was uttered at that time.
Anne, his wife, was at his side most of the day, but was sent home by her assuring husband
only an hour before his death at 3:55pm.
That same year on December 5, Lou's widow Anne died from an apparent heart attack at
age 47.
Family legacy in the entertainment industry Costello's older brother, Pat Costello was
a stuntman and an actor, mostly performing the stunts in place of Lou.
Costello's sister, Marie Katherine Cristillo was married to actor Joe Kirk, who portrayed
"Mr. Bacciagalupe" on the Abbott and Costello radio and television shows and appeared in
supporting roles in several of the team's films.
Lou and Anne's second daughter, Carole, appeared in uncredited baby roles in several Abbott
and Costello films.
She went on to become a contestant coordinator for the game show Card Sharks as well as a
nightclub singer.
She died of a stroke on March 29, 1987 at age 49 while married to Craig Martin, eldest
son of Dean Martin.
Carole's daughter, Marki Costello, is an actress, director and producer in film and television.
Lou and Anne's youngest daughter, Chris, wrote Costello's biography, Lou's On First, in 1981.
Memorials
On June 26, 1992, the city of Paterson, New Jersey—in conjunction with the Lou Costello
Memorial Association—erected a statue of Costello in the newly named Lou Costello Memorial
Park in the city's historic downtown section.
It shows Costello holding a baseball bat, a reference to the team's most famous routine,
'Who's on first'.
The statue has had brief appearances in two episodes of The Sopranos: "Big Girls Don't
Cry" and "Cold Stones".
In 2005 Madison Street, in the Sandy Hill section of Paterson, where Costello was born,
was renamed Lou Costello's Place.
The centennial of Costello's birth was celebrated in Paterson on the first weekend in March
2006.
Between June 24, 2006, and June 26, 2006, the Fort Lee Film Commission held a centennial
film retrospective at the Fine Arts Theatre in Hollywood.
Films screened included the premiere of a digital film made by the teenagers of the
present day Lou Costello Jr.
Recreation Center in East Los Angeles.
Also premiered was a 35mm restored print of the Lou Costello-produced 1948 short film
10,000 Kids and a Cop, which was shot at the Lou Costello Jr.
Youth Center in East Los Angeles.
In 2009 Costello was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Filmography Television
The Colgate Comedy Hour: 1950–1951 season – rotating hosts
The Abbott and Costello Show: December 1, 1952 – May 1, 1954
March 21, 1958 General Electric Theater, episode Blaze of Glory.
October 22, 1958 Wagon Train, episode The Tobias Jones Story.
References
External links
Lou Costello at the Internet Movie Database