You'd have to be a geezer or geezerette to remember this one, and darn few oldsters would remember this fellow's name. More, however, would recall the name of the characgter he played: Senor Wences, the Spanish comic ventriloquist who charmed America on the long-ago "Ed Sullivan Show."
His best-remembered character was Johnny, a rudimentary face drawn on Senor Wences' hand in a way that allowed Johnny to "speak" when Wences moved his thumb.
His second most popular character was Pedro, who was a head in a small box. Wences would throw his voice to simulate a voice with a foreign accent coming from inside the box. Wences would look at the box and ask, "S'awright"? He then would open the box's lid, and a grumpy voice from within would answer loudly, "S'awright."
Wences, who usually performed in a tux, would also juggle and while doing so, carry on conversations with the ever-critical Johnny. He was on Ed Sullivan's program 48 times during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Wences died in 1999 at the remarkable age of 103.
No comments:
Post a Comment