Lester Allen

Lester M. Allen (November 17, 1891 – November 6, 1949) was an American actor, dancer, singer, comedian, and composer born in Utica, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants Raphael Allen and Ida Bobin. His Broadway career spanned from 1907 to 1933, during which he progressed from acrobatic dancer to featured comic actor in musical revues and comedies.

Allen's path into entertainment began at age nine, when he left home to join the Barnum and Bailey Circus as a child acrobat. After departing the circus in the early years of the twentieth century, he moved through minstrel shows, burlesque, and vaudeville, developing skills as a dancer, singer, comedian, and actor. In 1908 he toured with the vaudeville act Lawrence & Healey, taking the role of "Jake, the Jew Kid" in their sketch "Stage Struck Kid." He subsequently toured in 1909 with the vaudeville sketch series Napanese, in 1911 in a celebrity impersonation act, and in 1913 as part of Joe Oppenheimer's Fay Foster Company, appearing in the burlettas "Yankees in Japan" and "Abe." In 1915 he toured with the burlesque organization Million Dollar Dolls.

Allen made his Broadway debut in 1907, playing the bridegroom in the musical Miss Pocahontas at the Lyric Theatre. He returned to Broadway in 1909 to portray Oliver Hartford in Roy McCardell's play The Gay Life at Daly's Theatre. During the 1910s and early 1920s, he established himself on Broadway primarily as a dancer and acrobat in musical revues, appearing in multiple editions of George White's Scandals and in the Ziegfeld Follies. His comedic instincts complemented his physical abilities, earning particular notice in the 1922 George White's Scandals for a comedic interpretation of the apache dance. A review in the Boston Sunday Post of the 1919 Scandals described him as an acrobat capable of playing his features "like an artist" and wringing spontaneous laughter from audiences. Also in 1922, Allen was among the performers from the Scandals cast in the original production of George Gershwin's one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, in which he played the café worker and custodian Sam in blackface. In the 1924 edition of the Scandals, he and actress Winnie Lightner performed a duet parodying the comedy Abie's Irish Rose. He also appeared in the 1925 revue Earl Carroll's Vanities.

As his career matured, Allen shifted from dancing and acrobatics toward comedic acting in musical comedies. He played Sandy in Florida Girl (1925), both Señor Tostado and Mr. Brown in Rufus LeMaire's Affairs (1927), Planchet in The Three Musketeers (1928), Elmer Peters in Top Speed (1929), and Al Darcy in Shady Lady (1933). In Top Speed, he performed the show's hit number "Keep Your Undershirt On" alongside Ginger Rogers, who was making her Broadway debut in that production. A clown costume Allen wore in Rufus LeMaire's Affairs was later used by Judy Garland in a scene from Vincente Minnelli's 1948 film The Pirate. Alongside his Broadway work during the 1920s and 1930s, Allen appeared in a vaudeville double act with Nellie Breen, emceed at the Palace Theatre, and in 1926 toured in the musical revue Hello Paris with Sophie Tucker.

Allen entered film in 1929, portraying the title role in the short film The Pusher-in-the-Face. The following year he starred in Leave it to Lester, directed by Frank Cambria and co-starring Broadway torch singer Evelyn Hoey. Following the decline of vaudeville in the 1930s, he transitioned more fully into film work, appearing in more than fifteen films released between 1941 and 1950. Among his recurring screen roles was the character Geoduck in the Ma and Pa Kettle film series, where he and actor Chief Yowlachie formed a comedic duo. He also portrayed Judy Garland's uncle in The Pirate (1948). Allen died on November 6, 1949, eleven days before his fifty-eighth birthday, after being struck by a motor vehicle in North Hollywood.