"A Bilko show could be funny 50 years from now, funny is funny. It's as simple as that." Allan Melvin
Allan John Melvin was born in Kansas City, Missouri on 18 February 1923. His proud parents were Marie and Richard Melvin.
His father, worked as a film salesman for Fox Film Association.
As a kid, Allan had a man he worshipped, his Uncle Arthur. He was a salesman, usually
decked out in spats, straw hat and wax-like moustache. Arthur would revel in telling young
Allan tales of the outside world - dressing them up in his own inimitable way. Allan
would run about for his Uncle’s whiskey to put him in the right story-telling mood.
Later Allan would say this about his beloved Uncle: "I thought if I could grow up and be just
like Uncle Arthur I would be a happy man. But I found something better – ensemble comedy.
And I found it through association. You’re supposed to push in this field. I got lucky, I met the
right people."
Allan upped sticks and moved to New York with his family when he was in his early teens.
Later they would move again this time to New Jersey. From a very early age, Allan enjoyed
using his voice in amusing ways and making funny faces.
His forays into show business were put on hold to see how he liked college. He attended
Columbia University, but after a few years he decided that this wasn't for him.
During World War II, he served in the United States Navy........helping to build DE's at the
Port Newark Shipyard in New Jersey. From here he then went on to sell wire recorders.
For a while he became an usher. Then he learned to do voices and he practiced doing
impressions of all kinds of people and things.
Some College acting friends, Frank Campanella, Thomas McDermott and a young actress
called Amalia Sestero had started a theatrical group, The Unicorn Players......and Frank
invited Allan to one of their meetings.......the die was cast........Allan and Amalia started
dating, fell in love and in March of 1944, they wed in New York City.
15th October 1946: Allan's now outstanding voice impressions got him noticed in other
areas ...........leading to him winning Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts radio show.
This was a variety show which ran on CBS from the year Allan won, 1946 until 1958.
The concept for the show was that Godfrey had several "talent scouts" who brought their
discoveries onto the programme to showcase their talents. The winner of each show was
determined by a meter which judged the audience's applause.
He then got a job on ABC radio that was better paid than his effects work. This was when he had a lot
of fun, playing a villainous killer called Rat, in many of the shows featuring Tennessee Jed.
Here, Johnny Thomas starred as Tennessee Jed Sloan, a singing and yodeling agent of President
Grant. In this rooting-tooting serial set in the old American Wild-West.
Tennessee Jed opening - Download Here (142kb) -
Nick Dalton and his Henchman - Download Here (171kb)
Tennessee Jed Dalton Tells The Rat To Kill Tennessee - Download full show Here (3.35mb)
Allan really enjoyed the radio scene, but when he met Richard Condon, of Manchurian Candidate
fame, his career kind of turned around.
Richard and Allan became great friends, he wrote a nightclub stand-up act for Allan. Then, Richard
arranged an audition for Allan with Barney Josephson the owner of the Cafe Society in New York.
Barney liked what he heard and saw and gave Allan a three month contract on the same bill as Nellie
Lutcher and Rose Murphy.
He was billed as The Man With a Thousand Voices. Richard Condon, also penned an early
children’s record for Allan to incorporate into his act. After this Allan took the act to other nightclubs
around town
It was his nightclub act that led the producers of Stalag 17 to offer him the role of Reed in their
new Broadway show. Here they tweaked the part as to get maximum use of Allan’s background and act.
8th May 1951: After months of rehearsals Stalag 17 opened at the 48th Street Theatre, New York.
The stage drama ran for 472 performances playing to record audiences up until 21st June 1952. Director José Ferrer won the 1952 Tony Award® for Best Director. For the next year or so, Allan and the New York Company, would go on a national tour with the play. As well as some newcomers, many of the featured players of the Broadway show continued their roles. These included John Ericson, George Tobias, Laurence Hugo, Lothar Rewalt, Edward Platt, Jerry Jarrett, Robert Lansing, William Pierson, Robinson Stone, Otto Simanek, Victor Sordan, Richard Cleary, Edward Stroll, Glenn Dicus, Jess Cain, Michael Everett, Jason Robards, Edwin Strome, Vincent Donahue, and Curt Lowens. Allan’s great pal, Richard Condon, was the associate producer.
Allan then returned to New York City to continue his radio and comedy club work, and then he began appearing on some television shows............
1954-55: First up was a spot on a soap opera...........the show in question was Valiant Lady. This was the dramatic story of Helen Emerson, a fortyish matron who was widowed in the series first season, and her subsequent attempts to raise her three children.
Allan said this about his role on the show: "I didn't do much Live TV. I did just a soap opera called Valiant Lady
for about a year. It was a lot of hard work. You had to go home and learn all that stuff every day, because there were
no teleprompters. It was a lot of dialogue every day. Larry Webber and I were airline pilots and he had the main
thrust one day and then I had it the next, so it got a little confusing at times, and we would inter-relate, I guess you
could say. But you'd manage to get through, It's just that you would go far afield of the script occasionally.
And they primarily were interested in getting off on time. (That) was the main goal of the producer and director, and
regardless of what you said, if you wound it up and got back on track by thetime it was 28 minutes 30 seconds, they'd
come out and say, "Great show, wonderful!"
And you don't even remember anything that occurred, and they didn't, obviously, either. But it got off on time. And
that was the main memory that I had of that ....... that I was glad it was over with, and I got into the Bilko show after that."
Arthur Godfrey
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Allan in Stalag 17 with co-stars, George Tobias and Richard Cleary
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From this triumph, Allan got a spot on the Godfrey radio show
for a week or two. This led to the entertainment industry
calling for Allan's services. He did sound effects for NBC for
a while -- things like when a guy opens and shuts a door etc. He had made a good friend in the British comedian, Peter Donald who helped him get a good feel of the business. Mr Donald became instrumental in opening doors for Allan. He was still a freshman att NBC when he got the call to work on Chaplain Jim (originally a World War II morale boosting show) with John Lund as the man of the cloth. All the effects for the programme were recorded by the sound department on a sunday morning and usually just a skeleton crew was involved as the show was very light in sound. But one time when Allan went in he picked up the script to find it loaded with effects......shells firing, airplanes zooming in, the works. In a panic, Allan thought he'd never complete the enormous tasks that were left for him alone to perform. He hooked the studio turntables up and got all the records spotted but just as the show was going on air, in his nervousness, he hit the music stand and the script flew all over the floor. The director saw what was happening - he rushed in and saw how much of a tizz Allan was in. He said, "Watch me" - then he proceeded to gesticulate with his hands. He did a machine gun and then he went ''whoooooo' with his hands. Then Allan, who by now had finally recovered a bit of composure, did a bomb and flew with the planes. The director did the whole number with Allan trying to keep pace with him because he couldn't recover the pages. It all worked out okay, although Mr Melvin was like a dishrag after this escapade!!
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Curiously, Harvey Lembeck, another character actor, was also appearing in this stage drama as Harry Shapiro...... a few years later Harvey and Allan would team up again to play Sergeant Bilko's
henchmen, Rocco Barbella and Steve Henshaw.
While a prison camp was a grim setting for a comedy, Stalag 17 spared no effort in exploring the humour that may have lurked in both language and the actions of captured American GIs during World War II.
The play was like reliving two and a half hours of life in a German prisoner-of-war camp. The humour
and drama was shocking……just as it was in real life. The drama was so well presented that it made it
hard to believe that the entire cast wasn’t flown direct from Colditz or some other German prison
camp. Every situation, not matter how miserable, produced its funny and morale-boosting side. This is what made America so great during the war…..always able to laugh when their spirits should have been broken.
Allan earned commendations, from the highest critics, for his performances as Reed, the typical
American GI, who was always entertaining the rest of the gang with his impersonations, amusing all.
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