Biography for
Eddie Cantor
Nickname: Banjo Eyes
The Apostle of Pep
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Height: 5' 8"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spouse
'Ida Tobias' (9 June 1914 - 9 August 1962) (her death)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trivia
Received a Special Academy Award in 1956 for distinguished service to the film industry.
He invented the name "March of Dimes" for the donation campaigns of the National Foundation for
Infantile Paralysis (polio), a play on the "March of Time" newsreels. He began the first campaign on his own radio show in January 1938, asking people to mail a dime to the nation's most famous
polio victim, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Other entertainers joined in the appeal via their own shows, and the White House mailroom was deluged with 2,680,000 dimes.
(1933-1935) President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Actor. (b. Jan. 31, 1892, New York City, as Edward Israel Iskowitz; d. Oct. 10, 1964.) One
of the true show-business legends, this banjo-eyed entertainer did it all: vaudeville, stage, radio, movies, TV, nightclubs ... he was even a singing waiter. The "Ziegfeld Follies" star made his
film debut in the New York-produced film version of his stage hit, Kid Boots (1926), which he followed up with Special Delivery (1927); while solidly entertaining, it took talkies to make him a bona fide
movie star. Cantor's energetic singing and his unique dialogue delivery made him a hit in a series of lavish escapist musicals produced by Samuel Goldwyn, beginning with a Technicolor adaptation of the
Ziegfeld-produced Cantor stage success, Whoopee! (1930), which set the pattern for the star's subsequent vehicles: a silly love story with goodlooking juveniles, lavish production numbers staged by Busby
Berkeley and featuring the gorgeous Goldwyn Girls (who included Betty Grable, Paulette Goddard, Virginia Bruce, and Lucille Ball), and plenty of cornball, sometimes risqué oneliners delivered by Cantor with
his trademark eyeball-rolling punctuation. Many of his highlight numbers also featured him in blackface. Palmy Days (1931), The Kid From Spain (1932), Roman Scandals (1933), Kid Millions (1934, with a
Technicolor number for the finale), and Strike Me Pink (1936) were virtually inter changeable save for casts, character names, and story locations.
Cantor, whose weekly radio show was a mainstay
during this time, appeared sporadically in films after that: Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937), a tuneful, topical musical comedy, was followed by the snappy Forty Little Mothers (1940), Thank Your Lucky Stars
(1943), Hollywood Canteen, Show Business (both 1944), If You Knew Susie (1948), and The Story of Will Rogers (1952, playing himself in a cameo). Cantor received a special Oscar in 1956 for his numerous
humanitarian efforts over the years. He also wrote four volumes of memoirs: "My Life Is in Your Hands" (1928), "Take My Life" (1957), "The Way I See It" (1959), and "As I
Remember Them" (1962).
|
