Phil Silvers

Phil Silvers (born Phillip Silver; May 11, 1911 – November 1, 1985) was an American entertainer and comedic actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah".

His career as a professional entertainer spanned nearly 60 years.

Silvers next worked in short films for the Vitaphone studio, such as Ups and Downs (1937), and on Broadway, where he made his début in the short-lived show Yokel Boy in 1939.

Critics raved about Silvers, who was hailed as the bright spot in the mediocre play.

The Broadway revue High Kickers (1941) was based on his concept.

He made his feature film début in Hit Parade of 1941 in 1940 (his previous appearance as a 'pitch man' in Strike Up the Band was cut).

Silvers also appeared in Lady Be Good (1941), Coney Island (1943), Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth, and in Summer Stock (1950) with Kelly and Judy Garland.

When the studio system began to decline, he returned to the stage.

Silvers wrote the lyrics for Frank Sinatra's "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)".

Although he was not a songwriter, he wrote the lyrics while visiting composer Jimmy Van Heusen.

The two composed the song for Van Heusen's writing partner Johnny Burke, for his wife Bessie's birthday.

Substituting Sinatra's little daughter's name Nancy at her birthday party, the trio pressed the singer to record it himself.

Over the next two decades, he worked as a character actor for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia, and 20th Century Fox, in such films as All Through the Night (1942) with Humphrey Bogart.

Around the same time, he played a scene with W. C. Fields in Tales of Manhattan (also 1942) which was cut from the original release, but restored decades later in home video issues.

The song became a popular hit in 1945 and was a staple in Sinatra's live performances.

Towards the end of the World War II, Silvers entertained the troops during several successful overseas USO tours with Sinatra.

When Silvers played the quintessential con-man Harrison Floy in the 1947 Broadway production of High Button Shoes, Brooks Atkinson praised him as "an uproarious comic. He has the speed, the drollery and the shell-game style of a honky-tonk buffoon."

He achieved major popularity when he starred in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S. Army post in which he played Master Sergeant Ernest (Ernie) Bilko.

Silvers later scored a major triumph in Top Banana, a Broadway show of 1952.

Silvers became a household name in 1955 when he starred as Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko in You'll Never Get Rich, later retitled The Phil Silvers Show.

The military comedy became a television hit, with the opportunistic Bilko fast-talking his way through one obstacle after another.

In 1958, CBS switched the show to be telecast on Friday nights and moved the setting to Camp Fremont in California.

A year later, the show was off the schedule.

Throughout the 1960s, he appeared in films such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and 40 Pounds of Trouble (1963).

According to the documentary on the DVD of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Silvers was not a traditional comedian: he was a comic actor.

He never did stand-up, and, out of character, was not known for cracking jokes.

He was featured in Marilyn Monroe's last film, the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962).

He also starred in the films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966).

He was a winner of two Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on The Phil Silvers Show and two Tony Awards for his performances in Top Banana and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

He also wrote the original lyrics to the jazz standard "Nancy (with the Laughing Face)".

Born Philip Silver, he was the eighth and youngest child of Russian Jewish immigrants, Saul and Sarah (née Handler) Silver.

His siblings were Lillian, Harry, Jack, Saul, Pearl, Michael, and Reuben Silver.

His father, a sheet metal worker, helped build the early New York skyscrapers.

Silvers began entertaining at the age of 11, when he would sing in theaters when the film projector broke (a common occurrence in those days), to the point where he was allowed to keep attending the same movie theater free of charge, to sing through any future breakdowns.

By age 13, he was working as a singer in the Gus Edwards Revue.

Subsequently, he worked in vaudeville and as a burlesque comic.

In the 1963–1964 television season, he appeared as Harry Grafton, a factory foreman interested in get-rich-quick schemes, much like the previous Bilko character, in CBS's 30-episode The New Phil Silvers Show, with co-stars Stafford Repp, Herbie Faye, Buddy Lester, Elena Verdugo as his sister, Audrey, and her children, played by Ronnie Dapo and Sandy Descher.

In 1967, he starred as a guest in one of the British Carry On films, Follow That Camel, a Foreign Legion parody in which he played a variation of the Sergeant Bilko character, Sergeant Nocker.

Producer Peter Rogers employed him to ensure the Carry On films' success in America, though Silvers's presence did not ensure the film's success on either side of the Atlantic.

His salary was £30,000, the largest Carry On salary ever, only later met by the appearance of Elke Sommer in Carry On Behind.