GALLAGHER, ED; AND SHEAN, AL

bynames of Edward Gallagher and Albert Shean, Shean's original name Albert Schoenberg, or Schonberg born 1863?, San Francisco, Calif., U.S. died May 28, 1929, Astoria, New York, N.Y. born May 12, 1868, Dornum?, near Hannover, Prussia died Aug. 12, 1949, New York, N.Y. celebrated American vaudeville team featured in the Ziegfeld Follies and other Broadway revues. Both men began separate careers as comedy and variety troupers in small-time burlesque and vaudeville before joining in 1910 to form the act of Gallagher and Shean. They went separate ways from 1914 to 1920, but in the latter year (at the urging of Shean's sister Minnie Marx, mother of the Marx Brothers) they rejoined to star in the Shubert Brothers' Cinderella on Broadway, with huge success. They then appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922, in which they sang their famous patter song, Absolutely, Mr. Gallagher? Positively, Mr. Shean! (Shean wrote the music, and Brian Foy the lyrics). Their popularity in this show and others was immense and inspired a host of imitators. Their success was short-lived, however. Gallagher became involved in a series of litigationswith Foy over song rights, with the Shuberts, with his third wife in a divorce suit, and with Shean. The team folded in 1925, and Gallagher suffered a nervous breakdown from which he never fully recovered; he died in a sanitarium four years later. Shean continued in vaudeville and eventually moved into straight dramatic and comedic roles as a character actor on both stage and screen, appearing in 25 Hollywood films from 1934 to 1944.