Starter of this subject: Walt Pattinson
Last post in this subject: 10/28/1999
Messages in this subject: 1
| Walt Pattinson | 10/28/1999 1 replies |
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Listening to The Chase & Sanborn Hour with Edward Arnold hosting, the twins Claude and Clarence do a segment, usually with Edward. Having never heard of them, does anyone know their background, other shows they're on, etc? They are quite funny.
Thanks, Walt |
| Elizabeth McLeod | 10/28/1999 0 replies |
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Claude and Clarence Stroud were real-life twin brothers, born in Texas on March 26, 1907, and first entered vaudeville with a comedy acrobatic act at the age of 19. They started out on the small-time Midwestern/Southern circuit, and eventually worked their way to New York. By this time, the tumbling elements of their act had been replaced by a stronger emphasis on verbal byplay, and they attracted sufficient attention to follow Edgar Bergen as a featured act in the RCA Building's famous nightclub, the Rainbow Room, in 1936. When W. C. Fields was dropped from the Chase and Sanborn Hour in the fall of 1937, the Strouds were added as his replacement, and remained with the series until it was cut back to a half-hour format in early 1940.
Clarence Stroud was involved in one of the juicier vaudeville scandals of the late twenties -- the Twins were appearing on the same bill as the famous song-and-dance team of Bert and Betty Wheeler: and Clarence and Betty ended up having an affair, even though Betty was ten years older than Clarence. The affair shattered the Wheelers' marriage, and Betty married Clarence and immediately joined the Stroud Twins act. The act lost some of its momentum as a result of the scandal, and Betty and Clarence were divorced within four years. The appeal of the Twins depended on the rapport between the brothers -- and adding a third person to the act tended to disrupt that chemistry. After their radio careers, the Twins concentrated primarily on nightclub and stage work. Clarence died in 1973, and Claude died in 1985. |