This is an excerpt from Teaserama, a 1955 movie that filmed some then-current burlesque acts. Since you're not the least bit interested in the scenes of beautiful women taking off their clothes, we'll confine ourselves to these vignettes with two comics of the day, Dave Starr and Joe E. Ross. I don't know much about Mr. Starr but soon after this film was made, Mr. Ross was "discovered" by producer Nat Hiken and cast in the recurring role of Mess Sgt. Rupert Ritzik on You'll Never Get Rich (aka The Phil Silvers Show aka Sgt. Bilko). Hiken must have liked the guy because later when he produced Car 54, Where Are You?, he cast Ross as one of the two leads.
Ross was kind of a fascinating performer. He never quite forgot his roots in burlesque and in night clubs where he did a particularly filthy (for its time) act. For a time, he was the house comic at Billy Gray's Bandbox, a famous (then) nightclub on Fairfax Avenue here in Los Angeles, not far from where Canter's Delicatessen is now located. When he hit the big time, he'd get booked for live appearances where Middle American audiences would show up, expecting to see Gunther Toody from the TV show. Instead, they'd get Ross doing his old dirty act from the Bandbox and they'd all walk out in shock. He became impossible to work with — showing up late and never learning his lines — and Hiken fired him at least once from Car 54. The show only lasted two seasons but Hiken told associates that had there been a third, it would have been sans Joe E. Ross.
He got other work…like on the TV series, It's About Time. His catch-phrase ("Ooh! Ooh!") is still used by folks who've forgotten that it once belonged to him. He did voices for Hanna-Barbera cartoons and appeared in small roles in smaller movies. He died in 1982.
Sad/funny story about his death: He was hired for $100 to do a show in the recreation room of an apartment complex in Van Nuys where he was living. In the middle of his act, he was struck with a heart attack and died. After the funeral, comic legend Chuck McCann was asked by Ross's widow to go pick up the $100 for Joe E.'s final performance. McCann went and got the check but it was only for $50. "I thought it was supposed to be a hundred," Chuck told the guy who'd hired Ross. The employer said, "It was but he only finished half the show."
Here's the kind of stuff Joe E. Ross was doing before he became a big star…
