Red Skelton’s letter on his induction to the International Clown Hall of Fame

Red Skelton was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1990.  Here is his letter in response to them:

I Dare Say — Laugh, Clown, Laugh!

(originally published in The Pittsburgh Press, September 14, 1946)

By Florence Fisher Parry

Hollywood — I tell you you have to go out and get your story out here; it’s never in the mail or on the telephone.

I know, I know: millions are spent on Publicity in every studio, and the Important columnists have their “leg-women” to tour the studios for them, interview the stars second-hand, and telephone them the gossip items you read in all the syndicated columns.

But I, being nobody, prefer to find my own – they are under my feet wherever I go, stories I can never use, stories that I’ll hoard for a while until something happens that makes their telling just pat. And some, of course, I’m sending on to you right now.

But they’re never the stories you go out for; they’re never what you think they’ll be. How was I to know what I was going to find when they told me at MGM that Red Skelton was over on Stage 10 working on “Merton of the Movies,” and did I want to see him? Matter of fact, I didn’t. It was hot, I was tired, and I’m not a Red Skelton fan.

Or wasn’t. Count me in now, though.Read More »Laugh, Clown, Laugh!