Rags Ragland

Before plunging into show business, comedian Rags Ragland was a truck driver, a boxer (which explains his cauliflower ears), and a movie projectionist. He entered burlesque in his twenties, working his way up to "top banana" at Minsky's. Among his fellow burlesque performers, Ragland was famous (or notorious) for his wild ad-libs, his unpredictable intrusions into other comics' acts, and his healthy off-stage libido. In 1940, he graduated to the big time in Ethel Merman's Broadway musical Panama Hattie. Shortly afterward, he became a contract player at MGM, where he gained popularity as Red Skelton's cohort in the Whistling movies (Whistling in the Dark, Whistling in Dixie, and Whistling in Brooklyn). Rags Ragland died suddenly of uremia at the age of 40.