Editors: On Aug. 26, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., Levitt will be at the Troubadour Bookstore, on Pearl Street, Boulder, reading excerpts from his book on Joe Frisco, signing copies and talking about vaudeville.
Joe Frisco, a vaudeville comic and jazz dancer, was probably as famous in the 1920s and 聭30s as television comedian Jerry Seinfeld is in the 聭90s. But soon after he died in 1958, Frisco slipped into obscurity.
Even when two contemporary fellow entertainers, Ed Lowry and Charlie Foy, collaborated on a biography of Frisco in the 1960s it was rejected by publishers on the grounds that nobody would remember who Frisco was.
Now, thanks to Paul Levitt, professor of English and co-director of the University Writing Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, all that is about to change.
Levitt unearthed that typed manuscript, edited the work, and has provided a who聮s who index. The resulting book, "Joe Frisco: Comic, Jazz Dancer, and Railbird," has just been published in hard cover and paperback by Southern Illinois University Press.
A railbird, explains Levitt, is a horse racing fan who haunts the track, and racing was certainly something that dominated Frisco聮s life.
"He was a compulsive gambler," says Levitt, adding that Frisco also was illiterate and the only thing he could read was the racing form. Not that it did him much good.
The book carries a foreword by the late Bing Crosby who, says Levitt, was a great friend of Frisco聮s and was always lending him money.
However, Levitt also describes Frisco as "an immensely gifted comedian" who found fame in the vaudeville theaters and nightclubs of Chicago and New York in the 1920s and 聭30s 聳 through the Prohibition era.
Levitt says the small nightclubs and speakeasies that flourished at this time hired entertainers like Frisco. Being unable to read, Frisco had no written material but would go table to table joking with customers.
In this setting, Frisco聮s quick wit, repartee, and ad libbed comments made him famous. Some of that same material also helps make this a very funny book, as well as an important contribution to the history of entertainment in this country.
In addition, Frisco was well known for his jazz dance, so much so that writer F. Scott Fitzgerald refers to him in his popular 1925 novel, "The Great Gatsby."
Levitt聮s entertaining treatment of the manuscript captures the world of show business in its transition from the heyday of vaudeville through film and radio to the early years of television.
The book follows Frisco聮s career through Chicago, New York and finally to Los Angeles and describes his world of theaters, clubs, restaurants, hotels, racetracks . . . and famous people.
Among the names sprinkled through the book are theatrical producer Flo Ziegfeld, creator of the Ziegfeld Follies revue, film comedian W. C. Fields, newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, comedian George Jessel, Bing Crosby and William Randolph Hearst.
Paul Levitt is the author or co-author of numerous books on subjects as diverse as the theater, medicine, aging and farm estate planning. He also has written three children聮s books and several plays produced by BBC radio in England.
His grandfather owned a vaudeville house in New Jersey and there were a number of vaudeville entertainers in his family, one of whom was his cousin, Ed Lowry. Levitt also is working on a collection of vaudeville jokes and skits to be published next year.