Frank Fay

Fay worked between 1891 and 1961 across actor, stage actor, film actor, filmmaker and composer and 1 further recorded occupations. This article rests on 2 published texts and 37 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

• Name — Frank Fay • Birth Name — Francis Anthony Donner • Born — 17 November 1891 • Birthplace — San Francisco, California, U.S. • Died — 25 September 1961 • Place of death — Santa Monica, California, U.S. • Resting Place — Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles • Years Active — 1918–1955 • Spouse — * Lee Buchanan (m. 19??; div. 19??) • Children — 1

Fay was born in San Francisco, California, to Irish Catholic parents. He took the professional name of Frank Fay after concluding that his birth name was not suitable for the stage. As a child, he appeared in Victor Herbert's operetta Babes in Toyland.

Fay enjoyed considerable success as a variety artist starting around 1918, telling jokes and stories in a carefully planned "off the cuff" manner that was very original for the time. He was one of the most analyzed comedians, with his timing and delivery praised. He formed several partnerships, including with Lieutenant Gitz Rice and appearing as Dyer & Fay and Fay Fay & Co. During the 1920s, Fay was vaudeville's highest-paid headliner, earning $17,500 a week. He often played the Palace Theatre in New York City, sometimes once a month. Later, he was successful as a revue and nightclub comedian and master of ceremonies, arguably originating the form, and also appeared frequently on radio shows. He was cast in a small role as master of ceremonies in the nightclub sequence of Nothing Sacred (1937). One of his most enduring routines, which he performed as late as the 1950s, was taking a popular song and analysing the "senseless" lyrics. It did not endear him to songwriters. For example, "Tea for Two": • "Picture you, upon my knee." (This guy just owns one chair?) • "Just tea for two and two for tea, me for you, and you for me, alone" • So, here's the situation: the guy just has one chair, but enough tea for two, so he has two for tea. If anyone else shows up, he shoots 'em! • "Nobody near us, to see us or hear us." Who'd want to listen to a couple of people drinking tea? • "We won't have it known, dear, that we own a telephone." • So, this guy's too cheap to get another chair, he has a telephone, but won't tell anyone about it! • "Dawn will break, and you'll awake, and start to bake a sugar cake." • Oh, this poor woman's life, I can see it now. Dawn breaks, and she's got to start baking, can't even run a brush through her hair, down in the dark, feeling around for the flour... • "For me to take for all the guys to see." • I can see that! "Hey, guys, I've got something the wife gave me!" • Is it a new tie? Is it a set of tires? • Nahhh—it's a sugar cake! Three layers, with a coconut cream filling! • "Oh, that's just ducky!," they all say, and they crown him with it.

Fay had his own radio program, debuting in 1941. The variety show was broadcast on NBC Red.

Frank Fay made a brief screen comeback in 1943 for the low-budget Monogram Pictures. He was teamed with comedian Billy Gilbert for a series of wartime comedies, but walked out after the opener, Spotlight Scandals. Fay was replaced by another comedian more congenial to Gilbert, Shemp Howard. In 1944, Antoinette Perry cast Fay to star in the play Harvey, about an alcoholic and his friend Harvey, an invisible rabbit, which was his last Broadway success. In 1951, he had third billing in the film Love Nest, remembered today as an early credit of Marilyn Monroe.

• Illustration — Frank Fay How To Be Poor, Prentice-Hall • Illustration — in The Stolen Jools (1931) Fay married Barbara Stanwyck in 1928, when she was relatively unknown. He helped her further her career in films, and she was given a contract by Warner Bros. late in 1930. Their only film appearance together was a brief skit in the all-star fundraising short The Stolen Jools (1931). They adopted a son in 1932. The marriage reportedly soured when Fay's career was eclipsed by Stanwyck's success, and they divorced in 1935. In 1945, Actors' Equity president Bert Lytell censured Fay for demanding that the association must investigate each member who supported the Spanish Refugee Appeal, or who criticized the Spanish Catholic Church for executing leftists, for un-American activity. The House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated those members. • Illustration — Joseph Peter Kamp, The Fay Case, Constitutional Educational League In January 1946, just months after Nazi Germany had been defeated, a rally of white supremacists gathered at Madison Square Garden for a pro-Fascist event called "The Friends of Frank Fay", organized by Franco supporters and members of the Ku Klux Klan. The number of people attending the rally, in which the speakers also castigated communism, labor unions, and the legacy of the then-recently-deceased president Franklin D. Roosevelt, varied in estimation, with reported figures ranging from 18,000 to 20,000 people. In the late 1950s Fay was declared legally incompetent. On September 20, 1961, he was admitted to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. He died there five days later, aged 69, of a ruptured abdominal aorta. Fay was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1929 — Show of Shows — Master of Ceremonies • 1930 — Under a Texas Moon — Don Carlos • 1930 — The Matrimonial Bed — Leopold Trebel • 1930 — Bright Lights — Wally Dean — retitled as Adventures in Africa • 1931 — God's Gift to Women — Toto Duryea • 1932 — A Fool's Advice — Spencer Brown — re-released as Meet the Mayor • 1935 — Stars Over Broadway — Announcer • 1937 — Nothing Sacred — Master of Ceremonies • 1940 — I Want a Divorce — Jefferson Anthony Gilman (Jeff) • 1940 — They Knew What They Wanted — Father McKee • 1943 — Spotlight Scandals — Frank Fay • 1951 — Love Nest — Charles Kenneth 'Charley' Patterson

Frank Fay was born on 17 November 1891 in San Francisco. Fay held the nationality of United States. Married to: Barbara Stanwyck. Fay worked as actor, stage actor, film actor and filmmaker, and the authority record catalogues a further 2 occupations under the same name, among them composer and songwriter. Fay was active from 1929. Fay was employed by Warner Bros. Fay worked in English. Fay died on 25 September 1961 in Santa Monica. Fay is buried at Calvary Cemetery.