Al Kelly

Al Kelly (December 18, 1896 ,

Biography Kelly was born Abraham Kalish in Kreva, Russian Empire (now Belarus), the eldest of six children of Max and Gelle (Mary) Kalish. The family immigrated to the United States in 1906. His younger siblings were Benjamin, Isidore, Israel, Fannie, and Annie. His parents both worked in the garment industry.

Kelly began his show-business career in 1914, in an act called Nine Crazy Kids, then started performing comic monologues.

When Willie Howard was signed by Educational Pictures to film a series of two-reel comedies, Al Kelly appeared in one of them (Playboy Number One, 1937). In 1941 Howard was filming comedy routines for the Soundies movie jukeboxes, and Kelly worked opposite Howard there as well (Comes the Revolution, 1941).

Kelly was well known among show-business professionals as a double-talk artist, while sitting in the audience in the dining room at one of his favorite venues, The Friars' Club, in New York City, during a roast. On September 8, 1966, a crowded memorial service was conducted at Riverside Memorial Chapel (Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street), New York City.

Legacy Al Kelly was referenced by Ben Katchor in a Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer strip as "Noel Kapish, the famous double-talk artist of the 1950s and 1960s" (a play on both "Kalish" and "capeesh?"). Al Kelly was featured by Drew Friedman in his book Old Jewish Comedians (2006), "a collection of portraits of famous and forgotten Jewish comics of film and TV in their old age". Al Kelly was described by Marx Brothers screenwriter Irving Brecher in 2006: "Al did double talk. That was his style. He spoke gibberish in vaudeville sketches [...] most comedians couldn't do it like Al Kelly could. He was unique."