Frank Fay (American actor), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Frank Fay (American actor)

American actor and comedian

Date of Birth: 17-Nov-1891

Place of Birth: San Francisco, California, United States

Date of Death: 25-Sep-1961

Profession: actor, stage actor, film actor

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio


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About Frank Fay (American actor)

  • Frank Fay (born Francis Anthony Donner; November 17, 1891 – September 25, 1961) was an American vaudeville comedian and film and stage actor.
  • For a time, a well known and influential star, he later fell into obscurity, in part because of his abrasive personality and fascist political views.
  • He is considered an important pioneer in stand-up comedy.
  • He played the role of "Elwood P.
  • Dowd" in the Broadway play Harvey by the American playwright Mary Coyle Chase.
  • He is best known as actress Barbara Stanwyck's first husband.
  • Their troubled marriage is thought by some to be the basis of the 1937 film A Star Is Born, in which the previously unknown wife shoots to stardom while her husband's career goes into sharp decline.
  • Fay was notorious for his bigotry and alcoholism, and according to the American Vaudeville Museum, "even when sober, he was dismissive and unpleasant, and he was disliked by most of his contemporaries".Although very talented, Fay offended most of the people he worked with because of his enormous ego.
  • Former vaudevillian and radio star Fred Allen remarked, "The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane, holding his own hand." Actor Robert Wagner wrote that Fay was "...one of the most dreadful men in the history of show business.
  • Fay was a drunk, an anti-Semite, and a wife-beater, and Barbara [Stanwyck] had had to endure all of that", while according to actor and comedian Milton Berle "Fay's friends could be counted on the missing arm of a one-armed man." Berle, who was Jewish, claimed to have once hit Fay in the face with a stage brace after Fay, on seeing Berle watching his act from offstage, called out, "Get that little Jew bastard out of the wings"..

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