Red Skelton mini-bio: Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton (July 18, 1913 – September 17, 1997) was an American comedian who was best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to Vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, clubs and casinos, while also pursuing another career as a painter.
While performing in Kansas City in 1930, Skelton met and married his first wife, Edna Stillwell. The couple divorced 13 years later, but they remained cordial enough that Stillwell remained one of his chief writers. Seven years after their marriage, Skelton caught his big break in two media at once: radio and film. Beginning with Having Wonderful Time (1938), Skelton appeared in more than 30 MGM films during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1945, he married Georgia Davis; the couple had two children, Richard and Valentina; Richard's childhood death of leukemia devastated the household. Red and Georgia divorced in 1971, and he remarried. In 1976, Georgia committed suicide by gunshot. Deeply wounded by the loss of his wife, Red would abstain from performing for the next decade and a half, finding solace only in painting clowns.
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