Cliff edwards biography drug

He appears in over films. He appears on the Broadway stage in nine productions including the Ziegfeld Follies. Cliff had his own radio and pioneering television show. Cliff finally gets his proper credit and respect in with the release of Steven Spielberg's movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His name also appears in the closing credits.

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Cancel Report. Create a new account. Log In. Browse Biographies. Quiz Are you a biography pro? A Herman Melville. Edwards would continue having network radio shows off and on through However with the start of the Great Depression Edwards' popularity faded as public taste shifted to sweeter style crooners like Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, and Rudy Vallee.

Edwards voice was also featured in two other films that year; he voiced the dying Confederate soldier in Gone With the Wind, and most famously the character Jiminy Cricket in the Disney Studios cartoon feature Pinocchio. In he voiced the crow in Disney's Dumbo. In the s and early s he made a number of appearances on the Mickey Mouse Club television show, in addition to reprising his Jiminy Cricket voice for various Disney shorts.

Edwards was broke in his later years, living in a home for indigent actors, often spending his days hanging around the Walt Disney Studios to be available any time he could get voice work and being taken to lunch by animators who he told stories of his days in Vaudeville. Sadly, he had disappeared from the public eye at the time of his death as a charity patent at the Virgil Convalescent Hospital in Hollywood, California.

His body was initially unclaimed and donated to the University of California, Los Angeles medical school, but when Walt Disney found about about this he purchased the corpse and paid for burial. He also recorded a few "off-color" novelty songs for under-the-counter sales, including "I'm a Bear in a Lady's Boudoir", "Mr. Edwards always played American Martin ukuleles, favoring the small soprano model in his early career.

Edwards continued to record until shortly before his death in His last record album, Ukulele Ike , was released posthumously on the independent Glendale label. He reprised many of his s hits; his failing health was however evident in the recordings. His film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer hired Edwards to appear in early sound movies. After performing in some short films, Edwards was one of the stars in the feature The Hollywood Revue of , doing some comic bits and singing some numbers, including the film debut of his hit "Singin' in the Rain".

He appeared in a total of 33 films for MGM through Edwards had a friendly working relationship with MGM's comedy star Buster Keaton , who featured Edwards in three of his films. Keaton, himself a former vaudevillian, enjoyed singing and harmonized with Edwards between takes. One of these casual jam sessions was captured on film, in Doughboys , in which Keaton and Edwards scat-sing their way through "You Never Did That Before".

Edwards was also an occasional supporting player in feature films and short subjects at Warner Bros. In a short, he led a cowboy chorus in Cliff Edwards and His Buckaroos. Throughout the s he appeared in a number of "B" Westerns playing the comic, singing sidekick to the hero, seven times with Charles Starrett and six with Tim Holt. Edwards appeared in the darkly sardonic Western comedy The Bad Man of Brimstone , and he played the character "Endicott" in the screwball comedy film His Girl Friday In , he voiced the off-screen wounded Confederate soldier in Gone with the Wind in a hospital scene with Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland.

He continued hosting network radio shows through In the early s, however, Edwards' popularity faded as public taste shifted to crooners such as Russ Columbo , Rudy Vallee , and Bing Crosby. Like many vaudeville stars, Edwards was an early arrival on television. Edwards was careless with the money he made in the s, always trying to sustain his expensive habits and lifestyle.

He continued working during the Great Depression , but never again enjoyed his former prosperity. Most of his income went to alimony for his three former wives, and paying debts, and he declared bankruptcy four times during the s and early s. Edwards married his first wife Gertrude Benson Ryrholm in Their marriage ended in divorce four years later.

Cliff edwards biography drug

In , he married his third and final wife, actress Judith Barrett. As well as being a lifelong heavy tobacco smoker, [ 10 ] Edwards also was an alcoholic , a drug addict and a gambler for much of his career. In his final years, Edwards lived in a home for indigent actors and often spent his time at the Walt Disney Studios to be available any time he could get voice work.