Dorothy Granger: Staple of Comedies

This is one in a series of posts we are producing in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, available from Bear Manor Media in February 2013.

Today is the birthday of Dorothy Granger (1912-1995). She grew up in the theatre; her parents ran one in the small Ohio town where she was raised. She toured the Orpheum vaudeville circuit before breaking into films. Granger was to be a major staple of comedy shorts for as long as they existed, working for Hal Roach (with Laurel and Hardy, Harry Langdon and Charley Chase),  Mack Sennett (with W.C. Fields and Andy Clyde), R.K.O. (with Clark & McCullough, Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol), Columbia (with the Three Stooges), and Educational  — which pretty much covers all the bases. When cinematic shorts died she worked with Abbott and Costello on their tv show. She also worked sporadically in features, and acted on television, as well. She retired from show business in the early 1960s.

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, to be released by Bear Manor Media in 2013.

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