hollywood: Charlie Callas

Sunday, 1 July 2012

Charlie Callas

Born Charles Callias in Brooklyn, NY on December 20, 1927, he served in the US Army in Germany during World War 2.Originally a drummer, he played with Tommy Dorsey, Claude Thornhill and Buddy Rich. He was always clowning around and would drive the band members crazy on the bus as they traveled. Tony Belmont, executive director of the National Comedy Hall of Fame in St. Petersburg, Florida said of Callas: "There were two things he could do that made his career, He could think very fast on his feet, and he had an unbelievable number of sounds that he made with his voice. He would tell a joke about two guys hunting. If you or I told it, the joke wasn't so funny. But Charlie made it hysterical by sticking in these sounds; so you would hear the gun cocking, the duck flying overhead, the explosion of the shotgun and then the duck falling and screaming all the way to the ground."^[1]