Frank Fay (comedian)

Frank Fay (born Francis Anthony Donner; November 17, 1891 – September 25, 1961) was an American vaudeville comedian (the first stand-up) and film and stage actor. He is considered an important pioneer in comedy. For a time he was a well known and influential star, vaudeville's highest-paid headliner, earning $17,500 a week in the 1920s, but he later fell into obscurity, in part because of his abrasive personality and fascist political views. He played the role of Elwood P. Dowd in the 1944 Broadway play Harvey by the American playwright Mary Coyle Chase. He is best known as actress Barbara Stanwyck's first husband.

Frank Fay was notorious for his narcissism, bigotry, and alcoholism, and according to the American Vaudeville Museum, "even when sober, he was dismissive and unpleasant, and he was disliked by most of his contemporaries". Although very talented, Fay offended most of the people he worked with because of his enormous ego. Former vaudevillian and radio star Fred Allen remarked, "The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane, holding his own hand." Actor Robert Wagner wrote that Fay was "one of the most dreadful men in the history of show business. Fay was a drunk, an anti-Semite, and a wife-beater, and Barbara [Stanwyck] had had to endure all of that", while according to actor and comedian Milton Berle "Fay's friends could be counted on the missing arm of a one-armed man." Berle, who was Jewish, claimed to have once hit Fay in the face with a stage brace after Fay, on seeing the teenaged Berle watching his act from offstage, called out, "Get that little kike out of the wings." Comedy writer Milt Josefsberg recalled that "Fay referred to other comedians as 'Jew bastards.'" Jack Benny didn't like Frank Fay personally or professionally: "When he appeared in vaudeville he rarely changed his act or polished it. He never bothered to remove jokes or lines that were dated. His attitude toward the audience was, 'You people are lucky enough to see the great Frank Fay no matter what I do.'"