RED SKELTON, TV'S CLOWN PRINCE, DIES.

Byline: Richard Severo The New York Times

Red Skelton, a master of mime and clowning whose gentle humor captivated generations of Americans, died Wednesday at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 84.

In the early 1940s, Skelton rivaled such formidable competitors as Bob Hope and Fibber McGee and Molly in radio comedy shows. His popularity grew throughout the 1950s and '60s, when he had his own television show on CBS.

Although the show never ranked below the Top 20 in the ratings, CBS ordered it canceled in 1970, apparently because the network thought Skelton's vintage act - replete with pratfalls, pungent one-liners and comic characterizations of everything from bumbling yokels to a couple of seagulls named Gertrude and Heathcliffe - did not appeal to younger viewers. NBC briefly aired a half-hour version of Skelton's show from September 1970 to August 1971.

But Skelton stuck with the material that made him a star. ``I'd rather have people say, `Boy, he's hokey, isn't he?' - rather than `Who was the guy who told all those dirty jokes?' '' he said.

Skelton did not approve of swearing in a comedy show: ``I don't think anybody should have to pay money at the box office to hear what they can read on restroom walls.''

Each show concluded with his trademark line: ``Good night, and God bless.''

Skelton's venerable sketches, such as ``Guzzler's Gin,'' featured his whole array of characters: Clem Kaddiddlehopper, a slow-witted hayseed; Freddie the Freeloader, a silent tramp; the Mean Widdle Kid, an impish prankster; the inebriated Willie Lump-Lump; and the self-promoting San Fernando Red.

``I'm not pulling the cat's tail; I'm just holding it,'' the delinquent child would say. ``The cat's doing the pulling.''

His audiences always could guess what the Mean Widdle Kid was going to do, but they would laugh uncontrollably when they actually saw Skelton perform the skit. Skelton thought they were right. Frequently, in the midst of his act, he would laugh uncontrollably at himself.

Laughed often

Skelton laughed easily and often at almost anything. Laughter overtook him so easily, he said, that he seldom went to funerals.

One funeral he did attend, however, inspired a memorable and oft-quoted line. Although Harry Cohn, the tycoon who ran Columbia Pictures, was much disliked, his funeral was attended by more than 2,000 mourners on a rainy March day in 1958.

Skelton observed the crowd and cracked: ``It only proves what they always say: Give the public something they want to see, and they'll come out for it.''

Skelton was unwavering in his dedication to patter.

``People in hell,'' he once wondered aloud before an audience. ``Where do they tell people to go?''

On television evangelists: ``I bought Oral Roberts' Christmas record album but I couldn't play it. The hole healed up.''

On wives: ``Webster wouldn't have written his dictionary if it wasn't for his wife. She was always saying, `What's that supposed to mean?' ''

Skelton's fans felt he appealed to almost everybody with a heart. There were some who said he was too sentimental and not sophisticated enough, but to those who loved his clowning, he was peerless - able to evoke mirth and pathos instantly with his endlessly elastic face and the sad eyes of a beagle.

After so many years of making so many people laugh, he was not able to understand why CBS canceled his television show.

``My heart has been broken,'' he told an audience in Las Vegas after the cancellation. That blow was still in his thoughts when he accepted the Governors Award of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at the Emmy Awards show in 1986.

``I want to thank you for sitting down,'' Skelton told the audience after he got a standing ovation. ``I thought you were pulling a CBS and walking out on me.''

As if to prove CBS wrong, he took to the college circuit and proved, by the strong bookings he enjoyed year after year, that young people liked him as much as their parents had.

He never got another regular television show, but he refused to retire. ``I can't retire,'' he explained. ``I've got a government to support.''

Painted clowns

Clowns were always his fortune: In his spare time he did paintings of clown faces that fetched $80,000 and more. He once estimated that he earned $2.5 million a year from lithographs.

Richard Bernard (Red) Skelton was born July 18, 1913, in Vincennes, Ind., the fourth son of Joseph and Ida Mae Skelton. His father, a clown with the Hagenbeck & Wallace Circus, died two months before Red was born.

He began working early in life because the family was destitute. At 7, he sold newspapers. He later said he learned to ``sass the customers so that they bought papers to get rid of me.''

Nobody in particular encouraged him to become a clown, but from early boyhood he seemed to have whatever it is that makes a clown funny. It was apparent when he was 10 and tried out for a medicine show. He fell off the stage by accident, breaking several bottles of medicine. He drew titters and sensed he could make people laugh easily. He liked the idea that by doing such things, he could even earn his way.

Pratfalls became a part of his early routine, and he continued to use them well into his middle years - with the result that, although his basic health was robust, the cartilage in both knees was shot. For 45 years he needed a cane and leg braces.

He liked clowning but also was drawn to other forms of acting. After the seventh grade, he dropped out of school and auditioned for dramatic roles. At one point he got a job with a stock company but lost it because he made the audience laugh when his lines were supposed to be serious.

By the time he was 14, the rusty-haired comic had already performed in rural vaudeville shows and on Captain Happy's Showboat, ``The Cotton Blossom,'' which plied the waters of the Ohio and Missouri rivers.

In 1932 he was given a screen test and failed it. A few years later he made some comedy reels in New York, but they were never widely circulated. He got an important break in 1937 when he appeared on Rudy Vallee's radio show. People liked him even though they couldn't see him, and Vallee kept inviting him back.

The doughnut act

During the mid-1930s he invented a routine that he kept for much of his career. He worked up a 30-minute pantomime sketch for Loews Theater in Montreal that required him to consume 12 doughnuts in various poses. He did this for three shows a day and promptly gained 35 pounds.

Mickey Rooney, then a highly regarded child star, saw the doughnut act, advised Skelton to consider the movies and put in a good word for him at MGM. As a result, Skelton was picked in 1937 as a supporting player in ``Having Wonderful Time,'' which starred Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. His screen credit was Richard Red Skelton. A year or so later, he appeared in a revue called ``Paris in Swing.'' He was popular but the show lost money and closed quickly.

In 1941 he made two movies, ``The People vs. Dr. Kildare'' and ``Whistling in the Dark.'' The success of the latter led to his own radio show, ``Red Skelton's Scrapbook of Satire.''

The title of his 1943 film, ``I Dood It,'' came from a phrase he had invented for his characterization of the Mean Widdle Kid. That phrase swept the country.

Other wartime movies in which Skelton appeared or starred included ``Thousands Cheer'' (1943) and ``Bathing Beauty'' (1944), in which he appeared opposite Esther Williams. He was inducted into the Army as a private, assigned first to field artillery then to an entertainment unit. In Italy he suffered what was described as a nervous breakdown but remained in the Army, entertaining troops in the United States until his discharge in 1945.

He resumed his radio show after World War II and also continued making movies, including ``The Show Off,'' ``Merton of the Movies,'' ``The Fuller Brush Man,'' ``Neptune's Daughter'' and ``Three Little Words.''

Skelton's 1931 marriage to Edna Stillwell, a 15-year-old usher at a Kansas City burlesque house, ended in divorce in 1943. She remained close to him as a joke writer and business manager for several years. ``She brought me up from $50 a week to $7,500,'' he said.

In 1945, Skelton married Georgia Maureen Davis, a model, and they had two children, Valentina and Richard. His son was about 8 when he was found to have leukemia. Skelton took him on a highly publicized global tour that included a visit to Pope Pius XII. Richard died in 1958. Skelton's second marriage ended in divorce in 1971. Georgia Skelton committed suicide in the mid-1970s.

In 1989, Skelton was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.

He is survived by his wife, Lothian, of Palm Springs, Calif.; his daughter, Valentina Alonso of San Francisco; and a granddaughter.

SKELTON'S FILMS AND TV CREDITS

Film credits of Red Skelton:

``Having Wonderful Time,'' 1938.

``Flight Command,'' 1941.

``The People vs. Dr. Kildare,'' 1941.

``Whistling in the Dark,'' 1941.

``Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day,'' 1941.

``Ship Ahoy,'' 1942.

``Maisie Gets Her Man,'' 1942.

``Panama Hattie,'' 1942.

``Whistling in Dixie,'' 1942.

``Du Barry Was A Lady,'' 1943.

``Thousands Cheer,'' 1943.

``I Dood It,'' 1943.

``Whistling in Brooklyn,'' 1943.

``Bathing Beauty,'' 1944.

``Ziegfeld Follies,'' 1946.

``The Show-Off,'' 1946.

``Merton of the Movies,'' 1947.

``The Fuller Brush Man,'' 1948.

``A Southern Yankee,'' 1948.

``Neptune's Daughter,'' 1949.

``The Yellow Cab Man,'' 1950.

``Duchess of Idaho,'' 1950.

``Three Little Words,'' 1950.

``The Fuller Brush Girl,'' 1950.

``Watch The Birdie,'' 1950.

``Excuse My Dust,'' 1951.

``Texas Carnival,'' 1951.

``Lovely to Look At,'' 1952.

``The Clown,'' 1953.

``Half a Hero,'' 1953.

``The Great Diamond Robbery,'' 1954.

``Susan Slept Here,'' 1954.

``Around the World in 80 Days,'' 1956.

``Public Pigeon No. 1,'' 1956.

``Ocean's Eleven,'' 1960.

``Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines,'' 1965.

Television:

``The Red Skelton Show,'' NBC, 1951-53; CBS, 1953-62.

``The Red Skelton Hour,'' CBS, 1962-70.

``Red,'' NBC, 1970-71.

``Freddy the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner,'' HBO, 1981.

CAPTION(S):

Box, 2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Red Skelton, right, rehearses with Bob Hope for a 1978 holiday show.

Associated Press

(2) SKELTON

BOX: SKELTON`S FILMS AND TV CREDITS (see text)