Robert Rollie Woolsey (August 14, 1888 – October 31, 1938) was an American stage and screen

comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...

and half of the 1930s comedy team

Wheeler & Woolsey Wheeler & Woolsey were an American vaudeville comedy double act who performed together in comedy films from the late 1920s. The team comprised Bert Wheeler (1895–1968) of New Jersey and Robert Woolsey (1888–1938) of Illinois. Collaboration a ...

Early life

Robert Rollie (sometimes spelled Rolla or even Raleigh) was born on August 14, 1888, in

Carbondale, Illinois Carbondale is a city in Jackson and Williamson Counties, Illinois, United States, within the Southern Illinois region informally known as "Little Egypt". The city developed from 1853 because of the stimulation of railroad construction into the ...

to James Monroe Woolsey and Sarah Eunice Woolsey (née Noble), both also born in Illinois. Woolsey, who had brown eyes and hair with a slight and slender build tried to capitalize on his size, as a young adult, by becoming a jockey. After he fell from a horse and sustained a fractured leg, he quit racing and turned instead to the vaudeville stage. In 1925 he was featured as "Mortimer Pottle" in

W. C. Fields William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. Fields's comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathe ...

's Broadway hit ''

Poppy A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, ''Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug opi ...

''.

Wheeler and Woolsey

Woolsey was teamed with comedy star

Bert Wheeler Albert Jerome Wheeler (April 7, 1895 – January 18, 1968) was an American comedian who performed in Broadway theatre, American comedy feature films, and vaudeville acts. He was the comedy partner of Robert Woolsey, and together they formed ...

in 1928, for the Broadway musical '' Rio Rita''.

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...

filmed the play in 1929, launching Wheeler and Woolsey as movie personalities. Twenty-one of the twenty-two films Woolsey made were with his comedy partner, Wheeler.

Marriage

From 1921 to his death in 1938, Woolsey was married to Georgia girl Mignonne Park Reed, daughter of Mrs. Mary Reed also from Georgia.

Illness and death

Woolsey became terminally ill in 1936 and struggled to finish his last picture, ''High Flyers'', which was released in 1937. His condition forced him to sever his working relationship with Wheeler. He was then confined to bed for almost a full year. He died on October 31, 1938, at age of 50 from

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

and

cerebral malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, fatigue (medical), tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In se ...

. Woolsey was interred in the

Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries is an American corporation that owns and operates a chain of cemeteries and mortuaries in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties in Southern California. History The company was founded by a group of ...

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census the population was 196,543, up from ...

Filmography

(As per the AFI database)

DVD releases

Nine of Wheeler and Woolsey's 21 movies were released in a DVD collection entitled "Wheeler & Woolsey: RKO Comedy Classics Collection" in March 2013 by

Warner Archive The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...

References

External links

*
Wheeler & Woolsey

Wheeler & Woolsey Fan Site
*
Literature on Robert Woolsey
1888 births 1938 deaths Vaudeville performers Deaths from kidney failure Male actors from Oakland, California Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) RKO Pictures contract players American male film actors 20th-century American male actors Comedians from California 20th-century American comedians {{US-comedian-stub