Paul McCullough

Paul Johnston McCullough (March 27, 1883 – March 25, 1936) was an American actor and comedian born in Springfield, Ohio. He is best known as one half of the comedy duo Clark and McCullough, a partnership he formed with Bobby Clark, whom he had met as a child in elementary school. The two attended tumbling classes together at a local YMCA, and their friendship eventually developed into a professional comedic partnership.

Clark and McCullough launched their career performing in minstrel shows in the early 1900s. Between 1906 and 1912, the pair worked in circuses before transitioning to vaudeville in 1912. The White Rats strike of 1916 pushed the duo onto the burlesque circuit, where they developed several of their most recognized sketches. Within the act, Clark functioned as the dominant, fast-talking comedian while McCullough took on the quieter role of straight man.

The team reached mainstream prominence in 1922 when they appeared in Irving Berlin's Broadway production Music Box Revue. McCullough went on to perform in a number of additional Broadway productions between 1922 and 1934, including The Ramblers, Here Comes the Bride, Strike Up the Band, and the revue Walk a Little Faster. The Ramblers was later adapted as the 1930 musical comedy film The Cuckoos, though that version starred Wheeler and Woolsey rather than Clark and McCullough.

In mid-1928, the duo relocated to Hollywood after signing with Fox Films Corporation for a reported $8,000 per week. Fox cast them in a series of two-reel comedy shorts collectively known as The Clark and McCullough Comedies. McCullough's contributions in these films were frequently limited to a supporting capacity, with Clark's character driving the majority of the humor. The shorts were poorly received by both critics and audiences, and were mockingly referred to around the Fox lot as The Clark and McCullough Tragedies. Fox dropped the duo after fourteen shorts in early 1929. In 1930, Clark and McCullough signed with RKO Radio Pictures, for whom they produced twenty-two comedy shorts over the following five years. RKO brought in prominent directors and increased budgets in an attempt to improve the films' reception, but the shorts continued to be criticized. Director Sam White, who helmed three of the RKO shorts, attributed the duo's film struggles to Clark's screen presence, stating that on film Clark came across as annoying and that he was a comedian who needed to be seen live. The duo's final RKO short was Alibi Bye Bye, released in 1935.

Following the completion of their film work, Clark and McCullough toured the country in a revue of Thumbs Up and subsequently signed on as the lead act of an East Coast touring production of the George White Scandals. In early 1936, before that production began, McCullough traveled to Massachusetts and checked himself into the New England Sanitarium in Stoneham, where his condition was described as nervous exhaustion. Upon his release on March 23, he was driven by his friend Frank T. Ford toward his home in Brookline. During the drive through Medford, McCullough asked Ford to stop at a barbershop so he could get a shave. While Ford waited outside, McCullough entered the shop, received a shave, and then used the barber's razor to cut his throat and slash his wrists. He was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where he died on March 25, 1936, two days before his fifty-third birthday. His funeral was held on March 28 in Brookline, and he is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts.

The circumstances surrounding McCullough's death remained unexplained. Clark, upon learning of his partner's death, stated publicly that he believed it was something McCullough could not help and had carried with him without knowing it. Clark eventually returned to performing as a solo act and continued to work until his own death in 1960.