Lou Costello

He had two siblings: brother, Pat Costello; and sister, Marie Katherine (born December 8, 1912; died July 8, 1988).

Was a great admirer of Charles Chaplin. He claimed to have seen Shoulder Arms (1918) 30 times and The Gold Rush (1925) 16 times, and attempted--without luck--to buy the screen rights to The Kid (1921) from Chaplin.

The two formed their famous comedy team and, through the 1930s, they worked burlesque, minstrel shows, vaudeville and movie houses.

Lou Costello was born Louis Francis Cristillo in Paterson, New Jersey, to Helen (Rege) and Sebastiano Cristillo. His father was from Calabria, Italy, and his mother was an American of Italian, French, and Irish ancestry. Raised in Paterson, Costello dropped out of high school and headed west to break into the movies. He got a job as a carpenter at MGM and Warners. He went from there to stuntman and then to vaudeville as a comic. In 1931, while working in Brooklyn, his straight man became ill and the theater cashier, Bud Abbott, filled in for him.

In 1938 they got national exposure through the Kate Smith Hour radio show, and signed with Universal Pictures the next year.

They debuted in One Night in the Tropics (1940).

Their scene-stealing performances in that film landed them their own picture the next year, Buck Privates (1941), with The Andrews Sisters. It was a runaway hit, grossing what was then a company record $10 million on a $180,000 budget.

They had their own radio show (ABC, 1941-46, NBC, 1946-49) and TV show (The Abbott and Costello Show (1952)). After the war their movies shifted formula to one in which they met various monsters or found themselves in exotic locations.

In 1942 they topped a poll of Hollywood stars.

In November 1943 his only son, Lou Costello Jr.., drowned in the swimming pool of the family home just days before his first birthday. Lou never got over it, blaming his wife--who was home at the time and didn't see the boy wander out into the back yard and fall into the pool--for the tragedy. Although they didn't divorce--they were both Catholics, for whom divorce at the time was unthinkable--it put a permanent damper on their marriage.

The performance of "Who's on First?" in The Naughty Nineties (1945) is considered the quintessential version of the routine, and the clip is enshrined in a looped video at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. If you listen carefully you can hear laughter in the background. It was the crew, whom the director could not get to stop laughing during repeated takes of the routine. He finally gave up, shot the scene in one take and let the laughter stay in, hoping no one would notice it.

Founded the Television Corporation of America production company which produced The Abbott and Costello Show (1952) and I'm the Law (1953).

He and Bud Abbott were so popular that there was an "Abbott and Costello" comic book that was published for about ten years until their partnership ended in 1956.

The team split up in 1957, with both winding up completely out of money after troubles with the Internal Revenue Service.

He had only one starring role in a feature film without Bud Abbott, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959). He died before it was released.

Pictured on one of five 29¢ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating famous comedians, issued in booklet form 29 August 1991. He is shown with partner Bud Abbott. The stamp designs were drawn by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. The other comedians honored in the set are Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy; Edgar Bergen (with alter ego Charlie McCarthy); Jack Benny; and Fanny Brice.

Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith; pg. 1-3. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387

In 1994 a life-size bronze statue of Costello holding a bat and wearing his trademark derby was placed in a downtown park in his hometown of Paterson, NJ.

In September 2003 Montclair State University in New Jersey dedicated a building in its new residence hall complex as "Abbott and Costello Center", after Lou and his partner Bud Abbott.

He and Bud Abbott are both nominees for the inaugural 2007 New Jersey Hall of Fame for their services to entertainment.

He and partner Bud Abbott were inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2008 for their services and contributions to arts and entertainment.