SMITH & DALE

Smith and Dale (Joe Smith and Charlie Dale) were a vaudeville comedy act from the 1890s to the 1950s. They also appeared in radio and film. They met in 1898, when they were teenagers (at that time, they were Joseph Seltzer and Charles Marks, two Jewish boys from New York City), and they formed their comedy act. But in 1902, when they met two other singing comedians, Irving Kaufman and Harry Godwin, and the four formed a comedy team called "The Avon Comedy Four", and they became top vaudeville and Broadway performers. Remarkably, they stayed together until 1919, when they broke up and Smith & Dale resumed their comedy duo act. Their fast paced talking comedy (in a heavy Jewish dialect) was only suited to sound movies, so they did not make a lot of movie appearances until after 1930, and even then, they did not do many movies. Their "signature" comedy sketch was "Dr. Kronkheit and His Only Living Patient". They recreated this and some of their other classic comedy routines in some of their movie appearances, and they also were frequent guests on variety shows like The Ed Sullivan Show. Their partnership continued until Marks' death in 1971, at age 89, and it was known as the longest show business partnership in history, and Seltzer continued performing on TV sitcoms until his passing in 1981, at the age of 97. They are buried in a single cemetery plot with a common headstone, along with Marks' widow! The comedy duo was the inspiration for Neil Simon's play "The Sunshine Boys", although the real life Smith and Dale got along well, unlike Simon's team.