Bud Abbott

William Alexander Abbott was born into a circus and show-business family and grew up steeped in the rough world of American burlesque, working for years as a manager, cashier, and performer in its theaters. That long immersion made him a supreme technician of one of comedy's least appreciated crafts: the straight man, the partner who feeds the lines, controls the rhythm, and makes the comic look funny. Abbott came to believe that a great straight man was worth more than a great comic, and he set out to prove it.

He found his ideal partner in a chubby, childlike ex-boxer and film extra named Lou Costello, and the two honed their act to a fine edge on the burlesque and vaudeville circuits before radio and Hollywood discovered them. Abbott's role was to be the smart, brisk, slightly shady operator, snapping out rapid-fire patter and forever exploiting his dim-witted partner. His timing was impeccable, his delivery machine-like in its precision, and he could drive a verbal routine forward at a breathless clip while never once stepping on Costello's laughs.

Their crowning achievement was the wordplay routine "Who's on First?," a dizzying baseball-themed misunderstanding built entirely on players with names like Who and What. It depended utterly on Abbott's control, his ability to keep the confusion spinning at exactly the right speed, and it remains a benchmark of verbal comedy so beloved that a recording of it is enshrined among the treasures of the national game. On film the pair became enormous box-office draws, particularly in wartime service comedies and a long, popular run of horror-comedy romps in which they met the movie monsters.

Behind the scenes Abbott struggled with epilepsy and, in later years, with tax troubles that consumed the fortune the team had earned. The partnership eventually dissolved, and after Costello's death the demand for Abbott faded. He worked sparingly, lent his voice to a cartoon version of the act, and died in 1974. His legacy is a lesson in the hidden art of comedy: that behind every great laugh-getter often stands an even greater straight man setting him up.