“He Had One of the Most Unmist

battered piano became his podium and his jokes his passport.

Audiences came for the tunes, but stayed for the raspy warmth, the self-mockery, the sense that he was laughing with them, never at them.

In vaudeville and later on radio, he perfected a persona that felt both larger than life and intimately human.

Hollywood and television merely amplified what continue reading …