travsd

Reggie Rymal: Baron of the Ball-and-Paddle

Reginald “Reggie” Wesgate Rymal (1921-2002) got his start in Toronto as a teenage yo-yo champion, but his ball-and-paddle act in nightclubs, film and television is what brought him brief fame in the 1950s. Rymal could keep many paddles going simultaneously and in live performance was prized for his ability to send a ball within a fraction of an inch of an audience member’s nose. His most famous moment of glory was in the 3-D movie classic House of Wax (1953), in which he was the intermission entertainment, paddling his rubber balls directly towards the camera:

Rymal also did TV guest shots on The Steve Allen Show, The Eddie Cantor Show, You Asked For It, The Colgate Comedy Hour, and The Spike Jones Show. He occupied a very narrow show biz niche, but he was enough of a show biz legend that Variety published his obit when he passed away in 2002.

To learn more on the history of variety entertainment, including tv variety, please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and for more on classic comedy please read Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.

Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.