Jerry Colonna
Actor, Film actor
1904 – 1986
Who was Jerry Colonna?
Gerardo Luigi "Jerry" Colonna was an Italian-American comedian, singer, songwriter, and trombonist best remembered as the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks in Hope's popular radio shows and films of the 1940s and 1950s.
With his pop-eyed facial expressions and walrus-sized handlebar moustache, Colonna was known for singing loudly "in a comic caterwaul," according to Raised on Radio author Gerald Nachman, and for his catchphrase, "Who's Yehudi?", uttered after many an old joke, although it usually had nothing to do with the joke. The line was believed to be named for violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, and the search for Yehudi became a running gag on the Hope show.
Colonna played a range of nitwitted characters, the best-remembered of which was a moronic professor. Nachman wrote:
Colonna brought a whacked-out touch to Hope's show. In a typical exchange, Hope asks, "Professor, did you plant the bomb in the embassy like I told you?", to which Colonna replied, in that whooping five-alarm voice, "Embassy? Great Scott, I thought you said NBC!"
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- Born
- Sep 17, 1904
Boston - Also known as
- Gerardo Luigi Colonna
- Gerardo Luigi "Jerry" Colonna
- Parents
- Giuseppe Colonna
- Elisabetta Magro
- Siblings
- Spouses
- Florence Purcell
(1930 - 1986/11/21)
- Florence Purcell
- Children
- Ethnicity
- Italian
- Profession
- Died
- Nov 21, 1986
Woodland Hills - Resting place
- San Fernando Mission Cemetery
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Modified by davidb
on June 08, 2022
Citation
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"Jerry Colonna." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 Jun 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/jerry_colonna>.
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