Requiem for a Little Buddy

The Tragedy of Abbott and Costello

During COVID I got really into Abbott and Costello films.

I spent the first twelve months of self-isolation watching all 28 movies the two comedians made for Universal Studios between 1940 and 1955. In a period where uncertainty was a major part of day-to-day life, I found comfort in the films’ formulaic structure. In every Abbott and Costello movie, there were going to be songs, old burlesque routines, and (at least in the first dozen or so movies) a romantic b-plot featuring a handsome man’s attempt to woo a pretty girl. Costello’s buffoonery would cause trouble, Abbott would slap Costello, and the two would survive to trip their way through another high-concept scenario in the next film.

While on my Bud Abbott and Lou Costello binge, I would occasionally read up about the life and times of the two comedians. I was always struck with the tragedy of Abbott outliving Costello. The mental image of the straight man left without his comedic foil bummed me out. Even more so when I learned that Abbott had tried, and failed, to find another short fat comedian to partner with after his partner’s death.

Brother, it turns out that I had just reached the tip of the iceberg when it came to being bummed out.

I recently finished reading Bob Thomas’ 1977 book BUD & LOU: THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO STORY. The book is a warts-and-all look at the behind-the-scenes triumphs and tragedies of the comedic duo. Thomas was a legendary Hollywood biographer who had direct access to both Abbott and Costello for interviews. That said, I’m not 100 percent sold on every anecdote in the story being true. That doesn’t take away from the fact that all the anecdotes - real or not - are entertaining as hell.

For example, when Bud Abbott was a young man he was employed at a local circus. One night he found himself at a bar bragging to a Norwegian man about the success the circus was having. The Norwegian kept buying Abbott drinks until he blacked out. He woke up the next morning to discover he had been shanghaied and was now an involuntary sailor aboard a Norwegian ship. Forced to shovel coal and teach the Norwegians English until he could find a way back home, Abbott got his revenge by teaching the Norwegians that “Fuck you” meant “Thank you” in English.

That’s almost as funny as “Who’s on first?”!

Abbott and Costello rose in the underbelly of burlesque and traveling comedy shows. They toiled hard to find their success - spending most of their time on the road and away from their families. They struggled (Costello was once so hungry, he broke into a farm to steal milk from a cow) and they fought (Abbott and Costello frequently argued over who got top billing, despite tradition stating that the straight man always gets top billing in a comedy duo) and they felt loss (Bud Abbott’s only son Bud Jr famously died after drowning in a pool on the first day Abbott went back to work after being hospitalized for nine months for rheumatic fever) - but they did it together.

When you work with somebody for as long as Abbott and Costello did (twenty-two years), a business or creative partnership can start to seem a lot like a marital relationship. Did Abbott and Costello hate each other? Care for each other? From reading Thomas' book, it seemed like a little from column A and a little from column B.

Costello, the sympathetic buffoon in every A&C film, was, behind the scenes, terribly cruel to his partner. He demanded to be paid more. He meddled in creative decisions where it might mean Abbott came out above Costello in any perceivable way. I can’t help but wonder how much of this cruelty was born from Costello’s innate personality and how much of this desire to show dominance over Abbott was born from the fact that in every movie and show they made together, Costello’s character was always the one being slapped and insulted by his “straight man” partner. Can you play a character for twenty years without taking on the grievances of that character?

In the end, it didn’t matter. It was Costello who initiated the duo’s breakup and it was Costello who prevented any planned reunion. While Abbott, the older and more experienced of the two when they first started working together, referred to Costello as his “little buddy” until the end, one of Costello’s final acts, before he died, was to try and stiff Abbott during an almost-reunion - offering only $500 of his humongous paycheck for a Vegas show if Abbott would join him on stage.

Costello would die in 1959 - three days shy of his 59th birthday. Abbott would die in 1974 but, before he died, he would voice himself in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Lou’s voice was done by an imitator. Who got the last laugh?

In their twilight years, both Abbott and Costello died borderline penniless and estranged from each other. Poor financial decisions, addictions to gambling and booze, and the changing landscape of Hollywood meant that the comedians - who had at one point been the biggest stars around - fell hard enough from their success that they left a crater. They went from delivering punchlines to being the punchline - “Did ya hear about the one where hubris killed the comedians?”

In thinking about BUD & LOU and Abbott and Costello in general, I can’t help but wonder what those last days of Bud Abbott’s life were like. Living in a small apartment (compared to the mansion with twenty-plus rooms that he had owned at the height of his career) and being treated for a neverending litany of illnesses and ailments.

As he lay on his deathbed, did Abbott mourn Costello? Did he regret not doing more to patch up his relationship with his partner before he died? Or was he consumed by anger - anger towards a man whose greed drove a wedge through a viable business partnership and anger towards a city that chewed him up and spit him out?

Judging by the fact that Abbott would spend most of his evenings watching reruns of his movies with Lou Costello, I suspect there was not much anger in the man’s heart towards his little buddy.

PS - Thomas’ book would be made into a movie starring Harvey Korman and Buddy Hackett. I know what I’m watching tonight.