Ed Wynn

Trivia

• Once part of a two-year vaudeville duo with Jack Lewis, calling themselves "Win and Lose.".
• At the end of the '30s, several of his business ventures collapsed, including a radio chain, and he suffered a severe nervous breakdown.
• Organized an actors' strike in 1919, and was boycotted by the Shuberts as a result. He got around the boycott by writing and producing his own musical shows, which were both critical and popular successes.
• The epitaph on his grave stone at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California reads: "Dear God, Thank You".
• Wynn reluctantly began a career as a dramatic actor in television and movies, prompted by son Keenan instead of retiring. The two appeared in the classic broadcast of Rod Serling's play _Requiem for a Heavyweight (1957) (TV)_. Ed was initially terrified of "straight" acting and kept flubbing his lines in rehearsal and was nearly fired. His quick ad-libs saved his performance, which is now considered one of his best dramatic roles ever.
• Eventually he took his middle name of Edwin and adapted it into his stage moniker, "Ed Wynn," in order to save his European immigrant parents the embarrassment of having a low-style burlesque comedian as a relative. Running away from home at age 15, he first worked as a utility boy and eventual actor for a traveling stage company. The adventure was short-lived and he returned home to sell women's hats at his father's retail store until leaving again in five months.
• Worked as an on-stage assistant to W.C. Fields as a youth. The story has it that Fields caught Wynn "mugging" for the audience during his "Pool Room" routine and knocked him unconscious with his pool cue. In later years he and Fields, both Ziegfeld stars at the time, sparked a well-publicized feud but eventually made up.
• Hanna-Barbera's Wally Gator's voice is probably the nearest to an exact impersonation of Wynn's "Perfect Fool" character.
• He was awarded 3 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 1541 Vine Street, for Radio at 6333 Hollywood Boulevard, and for Television at 6426 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
• Wynn was originally slated to play the title role in MGM's "The Wizard Of Oz". He turned the part down .....believing it was "way too small ...."!

Quotes

• "If I go on the air I've got to have an audience. If I am to get 'raspberries' I want them immediately and not three weeks later, in the mail from Sioux City."
• "I'll be back in a flash with more trash."
• "Wasn't it Whistler who said that a great painter was one who could hide the effort which he put into his work? The same thing goes for gags. It often takes hours to think up something that is said in seconds."
• "A comedian says funny things. A comic says things funny."