American comedian Phil Silvers was better known on stage and on television than on the big screen. Nevertheless, he still managed to make quite a few entertaining movies.
While performing, Silvers didn’t like to use funny costumes and his only distinguishing feature was the tortoise-shelled glasses he wore. But he didn’t wear them solely as a gimmick – his eyesight was poor, and he later had to undergo two operations to remove cataracts.
He was born Philip Silver in Brooklyn, New York on May 11, 1911, 100 years ago on Wednesday. He was the youngest of eight children of Saul Silver, a sheet metal worker, and his wife Sarah Handler.
As a boy, Silvers experienced poverty, but nature had endowed him with a beautiful boy-soprano voice and he began earning money by singing at parties, in theatres and in movie houses when the projector broke down, which was a common occurrence in those days.
Silvers was educated in public schools, but when he was 13 he dropped out of school to begin singing professionally. However, when he lost his singing voice during puberty he went into vaudeville and joined the Morris and Campbell touring company.
In 1931, as vaudeville began losing its popularity mainly because of the advent of talking pictures, Silvers left and began working as a social director in a popular resort hotel in the Catskill Mountains. It was here that he learned to be a performer and a comedian.
Together with Jack Albertson, who also would become an actor, Silvers began to perform sketches, musicals and stand-up routines and in 1932 they headed to New York to begin working at Minsky’s Burlesque. Although Albertson eventually dropped out, Silvers stayed on almost throughout the 1930s.
In 1939, Silvers made his Broadway debut in a small role in Yokel Boy, and it was this part that landed him a seven-year contract with MGM. He was not new to films, because he had already appeared in a number of two-reelers.
Silvers made his feature film debut in the film Hit Parade of 1941 (1940), but his first real success was when he portrayed a wise-cracking ice-cream vendor in Tom, Dick and Harry (1941). Many films followed, like You’re in the Army Now (1941), Roxie Hart, My Gal Sal (both 1942), Cover Girl (1944) and A Thousand and One Nights (1945).
Silvers then appeared with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in the musical Summer Stock (1950, released in Malta as If You Feel Like Singing), but the 1950s held more lucrative and successful projects than the cinema.
In 1951 Silvers was involved in a stage musical revue called Top Banana, in which he surrounded himself with a number of former leading vaudeville comics. The show became a huge success.
The production ran a year on Broadway and then it went on tour throughout the United States. After the show’s final performance, Silvers went back to Hollywood to appear opposite Doris Day in Lucky Me (1954).
But without any doubt the project that made him a household name was the television programme, The Phil Silvers Show (1955-1959, formerly entitled You’ll Never Get Rich) in which he immortalised the character of Sergeant Bilko. After four years and 142 episodes the show was cancelled, not because of any decline in popularity, but because it was getting too expensive to film.
After making several other projects on television, Silvers returned to the movies for the romantic comedy, 40 Pounds of Trouble, the hilarious comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (both 1963) and the musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). Then he went to England to join the Carry On cast in Follow That Camel (1967).
Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell (1968) is a delightful comedy in which Silvers, Peter Lawford and Telly Savalas played three ex-soldiers who all believe that they fathered a child with a local Italian beauty, played by Gina Lollobrigida, when they were stationed in Italy during the war. The story was recently re-worked as the hit musical and film, Mamma Mia (2008).
Silvers made two films for Walt Disney, The Boatniks (1970) and The Strongest Man in the World (1975) and also appeared with his daughter Cathy in The Chicken Chronicles (1977). His last film appearance was in There Goes the Bride (1980) but he continued to work on the stage and on television. He died of a heart attack on November 1, 1985 in Century City, California.
Silvers’ marriage to Jo-Carrol Dennison in 1945 ended in divorce in 1950 and then he married Evelyn Patrick in 1956 and they had five daughters together: Tracey, Nancey, Cathy, Candace and Laury. The marriage ended in divorce in 1966.