Red Skelton Brian Hoffman Las Vegas

Now Performing in the Red Skelton Tribute Theater
167 East Wears Valley Road Suite #17 (Shops of Pigeon Forge) Pigeon Forge, TN 37863

Red Skelton

July 18th, 1913 - September 17th, 1997

American entertainer best known for his national radio and television acts between 1937 and 1971 and as host of the television program The Red Skelton Show.

Red Skelton developed his comedic and pantomime skills starting at the age of 10, when he became part of a traveling medicine show. He then spent time on a showboat, worked the burlesque circuit, then entered into vaudeville in 1934.

He was most eager to work in television, even when the medium was in its infancy. The Red Skelton Show made its television premiere on September 30, 1951, on NBC.

By 1954, Skelton's program moved to CBS, where it was expanded to one hour and renamed The Red Skelton Hour in 1962. Despite high ratings, his television show was canceled by CBS in 1970.

Re-live those great memories by attending Brian Hoffman's Remembering Red - A Tribute to Red Skelton now performing in Pigeon Forge TN

Skelton believed his life's work was to make people laugh and wanted to be known as a clown, because he defined it as being able to do everything. He had a 70-year career as a performer and entertained three generations of Americans during this time. Many of Skelton's personal and professional effects, including prints of his artwork, were donated to Vincennes University by his widow, where they are part of the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy

Born July 18, 1913, in Vincennes, Indiana, Richard Skelton was the fourth son of Ida Mae (née Fields) and Joseph E. Skelton. Joseph, a grocer, died two months before his last child was born; he had once been a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. Skelton's lifetime there was some dispute about the year of his birth. Author Wesley Hyatt suggests since he began working such an early age, he may have said he was older than he actually was in order to work. Vincennes neighbors described the Skelton family as poor;

By age 14, Skelton had left school and was already a veteran performer, working in local vaudeville and on a showboat, "The Cotton Blossom", that traveled the Ohio and Missouri rivers. He enjoyed his work on the riverboat, moving on only after he realized that showboat entertainment was coming to an end. Young Skelton was interested in all forms of acting. He won a dramatic role with a stock theater company, but was unable to deliver his lines in a serious manner; the audience laughed instead,a childhood friend remembered that her parents broke up a youthful romance between her sister and Skelton