Chic Johnson
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Chic Johnson was the barrel-chested half of the Swedish-American comedy team of Olsen & Johnson, known for his somewhat manic, yet strangely infectious, high-pitched laugh.
Born Harold Ogden Johnson in Chicago, Illinois on March 15, 1891, he broke into show business as a ragtime pianist and met his partner Ole Olsen, a violinist, when they played together in the same band. After the band was discontinued, they started doing comedy and by 1918 were Vaudeville headliners.
Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson were given contracts by Warner Bros. in 1930 to appear as the comic relief in a number of musicals. They starred in such musical comedies as Oh, Sailor Behave (1930), Gold Dust Gertie (1931) and a lavish Technicolor version of Fifty Million Frenchmen (1931). Unfortunately, by 1931 there was a backlash against musicals in the United States and their last two pictures were released without the music. Due to the backlash against musicals, they were released from their contract and went back to the stage.
Their greatest triumph was as the stars and producers of Hellzapoppin', a zany Broadway revue, which opened at the 46th Street Theater on September 22, 1938 and ran for a then unprecedented 1,404 performances. Full of outrageous gags played on stooges posing as members of the audience (one winner of a so-called raffle had a block of ice placed in his lap), as well as indignities inflicted on actual paying customers, it became a smash hit despite a lukewarm critical reception thanks in part to the influence of newspaper columnist and radio personality Walter Winchell.
Hellzapoppin was followed by two other Broadway hits. Sons O’ Fun opened December 1, 1941, just six days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and ran an impressive, 742 performances. Laffing Room Only opened on December 23, 1944 and ran a respectable 232.
In 1938 Olsen and Johnson produced the Broadway revue Streets of Paris, which starred Bobby Clark and introduced the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.
Hellzapoppin’, upon the conclusion of its run, was translated into a movie that was released in 1941. Abetted by Marx Brothers veteran screenwriter Nat Perrin, Olsen and Johnson used the film as an opportunity to satirize Hollywood as well as score some impressive riffs off filmmaking convention. The picture, a movie within a movie within a play within a movie, foreshadowed a style of comedy that would later find its way into the films of Mel Brooks, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and TV’s Mystery Science Theater 3000. The film is also known for having what many consider to be the finest example of swing dancing ever committed to film, performed by Frankie Manning and the Harlem Congeroo Dancers.
Although the film is tied up in litigation, bootleg copies in VHS are openly being sold on the Internet.
Their career in Hollywood was very much a hit-and-miss affair. Hellzapoppin’ followed a string of earlier failures which was then followed in its turn by the much less inspired Crazy House, which was then followed by the extremely wild Ghost Catchers. Full of trick photography and guest stars, one of the film’s more inspired gags occurs during a séance, in which the usually wooden Gloria Jean announces that the spirit of a deceased roué has entered the room, the obvious resentment in her voice conveying that she has just been inappropriately touched.
After their final starring movie See My Lawyer the team tried but failed to make its mark on television with Fireball Fun-For-All, a summer replacement for Texaco Star Theater starring Milton Berle. They attempted to make a comeback with one last Broadway revue Pardon Our French, but the show failed to catch fire and they entered semi-retirement. With the advent of Las Vegas as a gambling and entertainment mecca, the team was able to find steady work until Johnson became too sick to perform.
Chic Johnson died of kidney failure on February 28, 1962. He was buried and eventually joined in an adjacent plot by Ole Olsen in Palm Desert Memorial cemetery in Las Vegas.
