orig. William Alexander Abbott and Louis Francis Cristillo
born Oct. 2, 1899, Asbury Park, N.J., U.S.
died April 24, 1974, Woodland Hills, Calif.
born March 6, 1906, Paterson, N.J.
died March 3, 1959, East Los Angeles, Calif.
U.S. comedy team, prominent in vaudeville from 1931 and on radio from 1938.
Their first successful film, Buck Privates (1941), was followed by more than 30 other slapstick comedies, with Abbott playing a bullying straight man to Costello's childlike buffoon. Their famous routine "Who's on First?" was first performed in the film The Naughty Nineties (1945). The collaboration ended in 1957.