Joe Weber

Joseph Morris Weber (11 August 1867 – 10 May 1942) was an American vaudeville performer who, along with Lew Fields, formed the comedy double-act of Weber and Fields.

Biography Born to a Jewish family, Fields and Weber formed their partnership while still children. The two appeared at Bowery saloons, museums, circuses, and in 1885 made their first stage appearance at Miner's Bowery Theatre, New York when they were just ~this is misquoted from reference ~ nine years old. Their slapstick, rough-house, English-garbling antics soon caught on and they were a sensation in San Francisco where they appeared for 10 weeks for $250 per week, an unusually high salary at that time.

The young men had a "Dutch act" in which both portrayed German immigrants. They returned to New York, appearing at Tony Pastor's theater on 14th Street, and in 1894 made their Broadway debut in Hammerstein's Olympia. They had three companies on the road.

On October 24, 1892, the Imperial Music Hall opened. Weber and Field took over the lease of the theatre on May 27, 1896, and after a period of closure for renovations, the theatre re-opened under the name Weber and Fields' Broadway Music Hall. Several of their shows were created by the writing team of Edgar Smith and Louis De Lange; the latter of which also worked as the duos manager for their national tours. These highly popular and financially profitable musical burlesques not only starred Weber and Fields, but were produced by them as well.

The Weber and Fields musical burlesques included exceptional casts with well known performers and comics of the American stage brought in to perform alongside Weber and Fields. Their final performance at the theatre as a duo was in the musical Whoop-Dee-Doo on January 30, 1904; after which their partnership dissolved until they re-united eight years later.

After Fields departure, Weber rechristened the theatre Weber's Music Hall; beginning with Weber's first musical without Fields, Higgledy-Piggledy, which opened on October 20, 1904. Some early advertisements for this show also used the name Weber & Ziegfeld’s Music Hall, as Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. was the work's initial producer and his wife Anna Held was briefly a star in the production. However, this partnership was short lived as Ziegfeld and Held did not get along with Weber, and their relationship with Weber and the theatre ended quickly after the production premiered with the actress Trixie Friganza replacing Held and Ziegfeld divesting of his role as producer. The theatre was later re-named Weber’s Theatre and in 1913 became a movie theatre; ceasing live performance.

Weber and Fields reunited in 1912, producing the unsuccessful Hokey Pokey and opening a new theatre Weber and Fields' Music Hall (1912–1913; later re-named the 44th Street Theatre). Their own NBC series followed in 1931.

Weber and Fields also reunited for the December 27, 1932 inaugural show at Radio City Music Hall, which proved to be the last stage appearance of the two performers as a team. They gave a cameo performance performing their "casino" routine in the 1940 movie Lillian Russell.

Legacy The backstage hostility in Neil Simon's play and film The Sunshine Boys is reportedly based on Gallagher and Shean, but also possibly on Weber and Fields, or on Smith and Dale, other similar comedy teams with partners in real-life conflict.