Biographies

Bert Wheeler

Bert Wheeler (1895 - 1968)

Albert (Bert) Jerome Wheeler was born April 7, 1895 in Paterson, New Jersey, the only child of James and Katherine Wheeler. His mother died at the age of 17 shortly after Bert’s birth. He was raised by his grandfather and his father’s sister, Margaret Wheeler McAveny, who gave him the nickname “Bert”.

Bert started his show business career at the age of 13. He began as a stagehand at the Patterson Opera House and quickly graduated to playing small roles. At 16, he appeared in George M. Cohan’s “Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway” and moved to New York City shortly thereafter. Bert soon started appearing in productions by Gus Edwards, who discovered Groucho Marx, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Walter Winchell, Eleanor Powell, and Larry Fine, later “Larry” of The Three Stooges. Bert was making $20 a week, the equivalent of $200 a week in today’s dollars, but his tendency to get into fistfights with the other boys. George Jessel later quipped to a reporter in the 1930’s that he told Bert “You’d better quit fighting with us Jewish boys, Bert; you’ll end up working for us some day.” Either way, battling Bert’s temper eventually got him fired.

Bert married Margaret Grae on April 27, 1915, shortly after Bert’s 20th birthday. The couple met while appearing together in the musical “When Dreams Come True”. They formed a vaudeville act which included a Charlie Chaplin routine that earned Bert the praise of Chaplin himself, who was America’s biggest film star at the time. The couple also started to appear on sheet music for songs they made popular, such as “Honolulu Blues” (1916) and “Some Girls Do” (1916). The couple was billed as “Bert & Betty Wheeler”.

Robert Woolsey

Robert Woolsey (1889 - 1938)

Robert Woolsey was born August 14, 1889 in Oakland, California to Thomas and Sarah Woolsey. The family moved to Carbondale, Illinois in 1894. Thomas died in 1896 and four of Bob’s five brothers died in childhood, leaving only Bob and his youngest brother Charlie to help support their impoverished mother. They worked as stable boys, newspaper vendors, and any job boys could get at that time. Bob was working as a stable boy in East St. Louis when he began riding as a professional jockey but broke his leg falling from a horse at age 15 and decided to try acting. He began playing small parts in touring theater companies and started his own troupe, Woolsey’s Comedians, in 1908 when barely 19. Woolsey turned down an offer to make movies with Charlie Chaplin in 1914 in spite of Chaplin’s growing fame at the time.

Woolsey married Mignone “Minnie” Park Reed in 1917. She was a dancer who appeared on the stage in musical comedies and was from a prosperous upper class family. They remained married for life.

Bob first appeared on Broadway in 1919 in the musical comedy “Nothing But Love” along with future film character actor Donald Meek, whose appearance matched his last name. His breakthrough came in March 1921 with “The Right Girl”, which Woolsey co-wrote. His large black horn-rimmed glasses and big cigar became his trademarks, later adopted many years later by George Burns. Many modern audiences mistake Woolsey for Burns when first seeing a Wheeler and Woolsey movie, but Bob was familiar to audiences around the world nearly a decade before Burns made his first motion picture. Burns also waited until the 1960’s before adopting Woolsey’s trademark eyeglasses.