Robert Woolsey

At the age of 7, his father died, leaving his mother and her six children in poverty, of the children, 4 died in early years. To earn some money to support the family, Robert took odd jobs, before becoming a jockey. This career ended when the horse, Pink Star, the future Kentucky Derby winner of 1907, fell and broke Robert's leg. Robert then went to work as bellboy at the Hotel Sinton in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he came in contact with actors who saw possibilities for him on the stage as comic. He joined several vaudeville companies, touring not only North America, but also the British Empire.

Around 1917, he married an eccentric dancer.

In 1922, he appeared with W. C. Fields in "The Blue Kitten", and also wrote plays. He hit it big, when he was signed for Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.

's "Rio Rita" in 1927, where he teamed up with Bert Wheeler. Both repeated their stage roles in RKO's filmed version of that musical. Due to their success, both were teamed up again for more pictures, a career that kept on until failing health made further work impossible. Although Variety suggested that both should try as singles, the movies they made apart weren't successful.

The great comedy team of "Wheeler & Woolsey" are little known in the 21st century, despite their great popularity in the 1930s. One of the reasons likely is the fact that their films were not packaged and sold to television in the 1950s, unlike The Three Stooges and "Laurel & Hardy", who then went on to entertain new generations of fans. Bobby Clark wrote much of the dialogue, and it was very risqué and was considered borderline in the more liberal 1930s (at least prior to the enforcement of the 1934 Production Code). Their shorts were geared towards adults, and even in the 1930s, they were considered vulgar, and thus would have been inappropriate on television in the 1950s as the comedy shorts of the Stooges and Laurel & Hardy were programmed for children.