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Red Skelton was an American comedian who was best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's career in show business started when he was in his teens performing as a circus clown. His clown act soon took him to Vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos. Red Skelton was born in Vincennes, Indiana. He was the son of a Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus clown named Joe who died in 1913 shortly before Skelton's birth. An Entertainer by the name of Ed Wynn spotted Red selling newspapers in front of the Pantheon Theatre. Mr Wynn bought all of the newspapers in Red Skelton's stock and took him backstage where he introduced him to the members of the show. By the age of 15 Red Skelton was traveling full time as an entertainer working all types of shows from medicine shows and vaudeville to berlesque, showboats, minstrel shows and curcuses. In 1938 he made his film debut for RKO Radio Pictures in the supporting role of a camp counselor in Having A Wonderful Time. Skelton was soon hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to lend comic relief to its Dr. Kildare medical dramas, but soon he was starring in comedy features (as inept radio detective, "The Fox") and in Technicolor musicals. Skelton signed a long-term agreement with MGM in 1940 and insisted that the contract have a clause that would permit him to star not only in radio but also on television. Television was still in its early years. The terms were agreed to and years later the Red Skelton Show became one of the most popular comedy shows ever produced for television.

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