Jerry Colonna (entertainer)
Gerardo Luigi Colonna (September 17, 1904 – November 21, 1986), better known as Jerry Colonna, was an American musician, actor, comedian, singer, songwriter and trombonist who played the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks in Hope's popular radio shows and films of the 1940s and 1950s. He also voiced the March Hare in Walt Disney's 1951 animated feature film Alice in Wonderland.
For other uses, see Jerry Colonna.
Jerry Colonna
November 21, 1986 (aged 82)
- Musician
- actor
- comedian
- singer
- songwriter
- trombonist
1935–1971
1
With his pop-eyed facial expressions and large handlebar moustache, Colonna was known for singing loudly in what Gerald Nachman called a "comic caterwaul", and for his catchphrase, "Who's Yehudi?", uttered after many an old joke, though it usually had nothing to do with the joke itself. The line was believed to be named for violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, and "the search for Yehudi" became a running gag on Hope's show.
Colonna played a range of nitwitted characters, the best-remembered of which was a moronic professor, of which Nachman wrote:
Personal life[edit]
He was of Italian heritage. Colonna's parents were Elisabetta Magro and Giuseppe Colonna from Muro Lucano (Potenza). He married Florence Purcell (Porciello), whom he reportedly met on a blind date in 1930; the couple adopted a son, Robert, in 1941. The marriage lasted 56 years. After his guest shot on The Monkees, Colonna suffered a stroke. Its paralytic effect forced his retirement from show business (save for a couple of brief cameo appearances in late 1960s/early 1970s Bob Hope specials), and a 1979 heart attack forced him to spend the last seven years of his life in the Motion Picture and Television Hospital. Florence stayed by his side to the end, when he died of kidney failure in 1986. She died eight years later at the same hospital.
His son, Robert Colonna, has been involved in theater for nearly 60 years, since first appearing on stage with his father. He was a member of the famed Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island. He is the founder and director of the Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater. He has also directed many productions at Rhode Island College, and in 2007, published a biography of his father's life, Greetings, Gate!: The Story of Professor Jerry Colonna.[4][5]
Colonna's great-great niece is American stand-up comedian Sarah Colonna.[6] It is not known if he was related to the Italian Colonna family of nobles.
Colonna was a popular radio and film figure at the same time that Warner Bros. cartoons hit their stride. Accordingly, his facial expressions and catchphrases were caricatured many times in the company's cartoons. Along with "Greetings, Gates!" variations and references to "Yehudi", several cartoons included variations on his oft-used observation, "Ahhhh, yes! [appropriate adjective], isn't it?!"
In the 1944 comedy Trocadero, Johnny Downs, in a vaudeville duo routine, dons a fake Colonna-style moustache and mimics Colonna's singing voice.
Colonna is mentioned in Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road.
In 1999, Jeff MacKay portrayed Colonna in the JAG episode "Ghosts of Christmas Past".