The long life of Sid Raymond (Raymond Silverstein, 1909-2006) brought old time show biz awfully close to our time.
In his early years, Raymond had worked as a tummler in Catskills resort hotels, and toured as a scout for Major Bowes Amateur Hour. Starting in the early ’40s he became a voice-over actor for Paramount Pictures’ Famous Studios, doing the well-known animated characters Baby Huey, Katnip (of Herman and Katnip), Wolfie, sometimes Heckle and/or Jeckle, and various other characters including the occasional Jimmy Durante or Jerry Lewis impression. This was his bread and butter until the end of the 1950s. He also played a character named Finnegan late in the run of the radio show Duffy’s Tavern.
In the mid 1950s Raymond also started to break into television and film as a bit player. You could see him on The Red Buttons Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Red Skelton Hour, and others. He appeared on Broadway twice, in Something About a Soldier (1962) with Ralph Meeker, Kevin McCarthy, and Sal Mineo; and Golden Rainbow (1968) with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé. Films he appeared in included three Paul Newman pictures: Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), The Hustler (1961), and The Prize (1963, in which he plays Edward G. Robinson’s double, an actual character in the story), as well as Easy Money (1983) with Rodney Dangerfield, and Susan Seidelman’s Making Mr. Right (1987). In 1999 he was the subject of a documentary short called Sid at 90. His final professional credit was in 2005 when he was 96 years old!
Check out the Sid Raymond Fan youtube page here.
For more on the history of show business, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on classic comedy please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube. And stay tuned for my upcoming Electric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.