Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough

@ National Portrait Gallery

Description

The comic duo of Clark and McCullough was born in 1905, when boyhood friends Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough teamed up to perform as clowning acrobats with a traveling minstrel show. A year later, the pair joined the circus and began perfecting a comic formula in which the cigar-chomping Clark played a likeable rascal to McCullough's hapless straight man. After six seasons under the big top, the comedy team made the successful transition to vaudeville and was soon earning kudos as top-flight comedians in a series of popular revues. Clark and McCullough debuted on Broadway in the Music Box Revue (1922) and went on to enjoy success in a string of hit shows that included Strike Up the Band (1930). In Steichen's portrait, the irrepressible pair appear costumed for their Strike Up the Band roles with Clark in his trademark painted-on "spectacles."

Type:

Image

Format:

Gelatin Silver Print On Paper

Rights:

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

View Original At:

http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID=npg_NPG.95.97&repo=DPLA