Ed Wynn

 Ed Wynn, born Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966)

Wynn was an actor and comedian noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor. In the early 1930s Wynn hosted the popular radio show The Fire Chief, heard in North America on Tuesday nights, sponsored by Texaco gasoline. Like many former vaudeville performers who turned to radio in the same decade, the stage-trained Wynn insisted on playing for a live studio audience, doing each program as an actual stage show, using visual bits to augment his written material, and in his case, wearing a colorful costume with a red fireman's helmet. Wynn reprised his Fire Chief radio character in two movies, Follow the Leader (1930) and The Chief (1933). Ed Wynn first appeared on television on July 7, 1936 in a brief, ad-libbed spot with Graham McNamee during an NBC experimental television broadcast. In the 1949–50 season, Ed Wynn hosted one of the first network, comedy-variety television shows, on CBS, and won both a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award in 1949. Buster Keaton, Lucille Ball, and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances with Wynn.

In a 1956 Playhouse 90 broadcast of Rod Serling's play Requiem for a Heavyweight, Wynn began a transition to acting in dramatic roles, a stark contrast to what he was used to. Ed was terrified of straight acting and kept goofing his lines in rehearsal. On live broadcast night, Wynn surprised everyone with his pitch-perfect performance, and his quick ad libs to cover his mistakes. Requiem established Wynn as serious dramatic actor who could easily hold his own with the best. His role in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Six years later he appeared in the Bible epic The Greatest Story Ever Told. Wynn died June 19, 1966 in Beverly Hills, California of throat cancer, aged 79. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, inside the Great Mausoleum.