Born Isaiah Edwin Leopold, Ed Wynn began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was known for his Perfect Fool comedy character and his performances in classic Disney films such as Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins.
Wynn attended Central High School until age 15, then ran away from home and worked as a hat salesman and as a utility boy, eventually adapting his middle name “Edwin” into his new stage name, “Ed Wynn.”
Wynn wrote, directed, and produced many Broadway shows, and was known for his giggly voice and silly costumes he developed for the musical The Perfect Fool.
In the ‘30s, Wynn hosted the radio show The Fire Chief. His opening, “Tonight, Graham, the show’s gonna be different,” became one of the most familiar taglines of its time.
His Fire Chief radio character later appeared in two films, Follow the Leader and The Chief.
In 1933, at the peak of his popularity as radio’s Texaco Fire Chief, Wynn founded the Amalgamated Broadcasting System (ABS), the project intended to compete with NBC and CBS by offering lower rates to advertisers and better terms to performers, but this idea lasted only five weeks, nearly destroying the comedian.
According to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, “His career, and for that matter, his personal life, were filled with ups and downs. For decades, he battled crushing personal depression and yet, he endured. For nearly sixty-four years, Ed Wynn was a professional entertainer, dedicated to the simple pursuit of laughter. Even when he himself had little to laugh about.”
Wynn’s first appearance on television was in 1936, in a brief part with Graham McNamee during an NBC experimental television broadcast. Then in 1939 Wynn was offered the title role The Wizard in MGM‘s screen adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, but turned it down, because he felt the part was too small, after checking the early version of the script.
In the ’50s, Wynn hosted The Ed Wynn Show, one of the first network comedy-variety television shows, on CBS. And at that same time, he started working with Disney. He voiced the Mad Hatter in the animated film Alice in Wonderland, and played Uncle Albert in Disney’s Mary Poppins, floating around and singing I Love to Laugh.
Later in his career, Wynn played a serious role in Requiem for a Heavyweight. After that, he appeared in the television drama The Great American Hoax and in two movies, Marjorie Morningstar and The Great Man.
Wynn died on June 19, 1966, in California, of esophageal cancer, at age 79.
Red Skelton, the American entertainer who was discovered by Wynn, said: “His death is the first time he ever made anyone sad.”
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