Phil Baker (August 26, 1896, Philadelphia,
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
- November 30, 1963,
CopenhagenCopenhagen ; ) is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban area with a population of 1,167,569 and a metropolitan area with a population of 1,875,179...
) is best known as a popular American
comedianA comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain members of an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
and emcee on
radioRadio is the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
. Baker was also a
vaudevilleVaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
,
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
,
songwriterA songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics, as well as the musical composition or melody to songs. One who writes only lyrics is a lyricist, while one who writes only music is a composer.-History and background of songwriters:...
, accordionist and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
.
Baker went to school in
BostonBoston is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England"...
, and his first stage appearance was in a Boston amateur show. Baker began in vaudeville playing the piano for
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
ist Ed Janis, and he was 19 when he teamed with
Ben BernieBen Bernie , born Bernard Anzelevitz, was an American jazz violinist and radio personality, often introduced as The Old Maestro. He was noted for his showmanship and memorable bits of snappy dialogue.By the age of 15 he was teaching violin, but this experience apparently diminished his interest in...
for the vaudeville act, "Bernie and Baker." This originally was a serious musical act with Baker on
accordionThe accordion is a portable box-shaped musical instrument of the hand-held bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox...
and Bernie on violin but eventually ended up with comic elements.
Phil Baker (August 26, 1896, Philadelphia,
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
- November 30, 1963,
CopenhagenCopenhagen ; ) is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban area with a population of 1,167,569 and a metropolitan area with a population of 1,875,179...
) is best known as a popular American
comedianA comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain members of an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
and emcee on
radioRadio is the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
. Baker was also a
vaudevilleVaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
,
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
,
songwriterA songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics, as well as the musical composition or melody to songs. One who writes only lyrics is a lyricist, while one who writes only music is a composer.-History and background of songwriters:...
, accordionist and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
.
Baker went to school in
BostonBoston is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England"...
, and his first stage appearance was in a Boston amateur show. Baker began in vaudeville playing the piano for
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
ist Ed Janis, and he was 19 when he teamed with
Ben BernieBen Bernie , born Bernard Anzelevitz, was an American jazz violinist and radio personality, often introduced as The Old Maestro. He was noted for his showmanship and memorable bits of snappy dialogue.By the age of 15 he was teaching violin, but this experience apparently diminished his interest in...
for the vaudeville act, "Bernie and Baker." This originally was a serious musical act with Baker on
accordionThe accordion is a portable box-shaped musical instrument of the hand-held bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox...
and Bernie on violin but eventually ended up with comic elements. After breaking with Bernie shortly after
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, both young men went onto pursue successful solo careers. Baker's solo act included him singing, playing the accordion, telling jokes and being heckled by a planted audience member named "Jojo." With this act, Baker played the
Palace TheatreThe Palace Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 1564 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan.-History:Designed by architects Kirchoff & Rose, the theatre, built by California vaudeville entrepreneur and Broadway impresario Martin Beck, experienced a number of problems before it opened. E. F....
in 1930 and 1931.
In 1923, Baker appeared in an early DeForest
PhonofilmIn 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
short
A Musical MonologueA Musical Monologue is a 1923 short film produced by Lee De Forest in his early DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film features Phil Baker, well-known vaudevillian, singing and playing the accordion. This film premiered with 17 other short Phonofilms on 15 April 1923 at the Rivoli...
in which he played the accordion and sang. Bernie also appeared in a DeForest Phonofilm
Ben Bernie and All the LadsBen Bernie and All the Lads is a short film made by Lee De Forest in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film features Ben Bernie conducting his band All The Lads, and features pianist Oscar Levant....
featuring Bernie's band and pianist
Oscar LevantOscar Levant was an American pianist, composer, author, comedian, and actor. He was more famous for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio and in movies and television, than for his music.
-Life:...
. During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
Baker served in the US Navy. Baker appeared in a number of Broadway musicals:
- Music Box Revue
- Crazy Quilt
- Artists and Models
- Greenwich Village Follies
- A Night in Spain
- Calling All Stars
Baker appeared in the
Carmen MirandaMaria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha
GCIH, better known by the stage name Carmen Miranda was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer and actress popular in the 1940s and 1950s....
musical
The Gang's All HereThe Gang's All Here is an American Twentieth Century Fox Technicolor musical feature film starring Alice Faye, James Ellison, and Carmen Miranda in a story about a soldier and a nightclub singer. The film, directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley, is considered a camp classic...
(1943). Baker's likeness was drawn in caricature by
Alex GardAlex Gard , born Alexis Kremkoff in Kazan, Russia, was a cartoonist. He contributed weekly drawings to the drama section of The New York Herald Tribune, and was hired to create caricatures of Broadway and other celebrities at Sardi's Restaurant in New York City.Restaurant owner, Vincent Sardi,...
for the walls of
Sardi'sSardi's is a restaurant in New York City's theater district at 234 West 44th Street in Manhattan. Known for the hundreds of caricatures of show-business celebrities that adorn its walls, Sardi's opened at its current location on March 5,1927....
, the
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
theater district restaurant. That picture is now part of the collection of the
New York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is one of the leading public libraries of the world and is one of the United States's most significant research libraries. It is composed of a very large circulating public library system combined with a very large non-lending research library system...
.
Radio
On radio, he starred in his own series
The Armour Jester on
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
, and during the 1940s he was the host of the popular quiz show
Take It or Leave It, which later changed its title to
The $64 Question.
Baker composed many songs, including:
- Park Avenue Strut
- Look At Those Eyes
- Just Suppose
- Antoinette
- Strange Interlude
- Humming a Love Song
- Rainy Day Pal
- Pretty Little Baby
- Did You Mean It?
- My Heaven on Earth
- Invitation to a Broken Heart
External links