Quick Facts
Biography
Frederick John Westcott (26 March 1866 – 18 September 1941), best known by his stage name Fred Karno, was an English theatre impresario of the British music hall. As a comedian of slapstick he is credited with popularizing the custard-pie-in-the-face gag. During the 1890s, in order to circumvent stage censorship, Karno developed a form of sketch comedy without dialogue.
Cheeky authority-defying playlets such as "Jail Mum" (1896) in which prisoners play tricks on warders and "Early Birds" (1903), where a small man defeats a large ruffian in London's East End, can be seen as precursors of movie silent comedy. Film producer Hal Roach stated: "Fred Karno is not only a genius, he is the man who originated slapstick comedy. We in Hollywood owe much to him."
Among the music hall comedians who worked for him were Charlie Chaplin and his understudy, Arthur Jefferson, who later adopted the name of Stan Laurel. These were part of what was known as "Fred Karno's Army", a phrase still occasionally used in the UK to refer to a chaotic group or organisation. The phrase was also adapted by British soldiers into a trench song in the First World War, as a parody of, or rather to the tune of, the hymn The Church's One Foundation. In the Second World War it was adapted as the Anthem of the Guinea Pig Club, the first line becoming "We are McIndoe's Army ...".
Biography
Karno was born in Exeter, Devon, England, in 1866. He worked as a cabinet maker with a workshop in Waterbeer Street. He married Edith and in 1896 his son, Fred Karno, Jr. was born. In 1904 he visited Tagg's Island on London's River Thames and in 1912 he bought the island and the existing hotel. He demolished the original hotel and hired architect Frank Matcham to build The Karsino. With the advent of cinema, the music hall's popularity declined. As a result of this decline, Karno went bankrupt in 1925.
On 24 May 1927 his wife Edith, from whom he had been separated since 1904, died in her sleep of diabetes. Three weeks later, Karno married his second wife, his long-time partner, Marie Moore. Karno went to the US in 1929, and was hired by the Hal Roach Studios as a writer-director, and was reunited with one of his former protégés, Stan Laurel. However, his stay at the studio was brief and unsuccessful as Hal Roach found out Karno's main abilities were as a producer, and he departed in February 1930. On his return to Britain, Karno helped to write and produce several short films and in 1936 returned to the theatre with a show called Real Life.
Karno spent his last years in southwest England in the village of Lilliput, Dorset as a part-owner of an off-licence bought with financial help from another of his protégés, Charlie Chaplin, and died there in 1941 from diabetes, aged 75.
Legacy
His houseboat, the Astoria, on the River Thames at Hampton, Middlesex, is now used as a recording studio by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour.
On 30 September 2012, the Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America unveiled a commemorative blue plaque to Karno at his former studios at 38 Southwell Road, Camberwell in south London.