Frank Fay

Jack Benny stated that he modeled his early stage character on Fay. During the 1920s, Fay was vaudeville's highest-paid headliner, earning $17,500 a week. Read Less

Some film historians have claimed that their relationship was the basis for A Star is Born, but this has not been confirmed.

Fay's Broadway talent and early success in talkies with his pre-Code risque humor did not bode well with the rising conservative movement ushered in by the Great Depression. Fay played in a series of films casting him as a debonair lover, irresistible to women, that frequently threw in suggestive jokes (e.g. homosexuality, sex). He was successful as a revue and night club comedian and master of ceremonies and appeared frequently on radio shows. He was cast in a bit part as master of ceremonies in the night club sequence of Nothing Sacred (1937).

As late as the 1950s, one of his most enduring routines was taking a popular song and analysing the "senseless" lyrics, for example "Tea for Two": - Read Less

He was teamed with comedian Billy Gilbert for a series of wartime comedies, but walked out after the opener, Spotlight Scandals. Fay was replaced by another comedian more congenial to Gilbert, Shemp Howard. After the end of World War II, he had third billing in a movie called Love Nest.

Frank Fay died in Santa Monica, California, aged 69.

Fay has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Read Less