Occupation TV host, entertainer Spouse Ceil Bolton Role TV personality | Name Joe Bolton Years active 1927-1975 | |
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Full Name Joseph Reeves Bolton III Born September 8, 1910 ( 1910-09-08 ) Flushing, New York, USA Known for "The Clubhouse Gang" and other TV shows in the early years of television Children Catherine BoltonJoseph Reeves Bolton IV Movies Stop! Look! and Laugh, The Outlaws Is Coming People also search for Jules White, Norman Maurer, Louis Brandt, Don Appell | ||
Joe Bolton (September 8, 1910 – August 13, 1986) was the host of the WPIX show "The Clubhouse Gang" and "The Three Stooges Funhouse" as Officer Joe Bolton. Bolton was also the Police Chief host of "The Dick Tracy Show".
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Biography
Bolton was born in Flushing, New York to Florence Youngling and Joseph Reeves Bolton II. By 1920, his parents were living in Manhattan where his father was a sales manager for hotel supplies.
He started his broadcast career in 1927 as a staff announcer for WOR in Newark, New Jersey. He was the announcer for DuMont Television Network's talent show Doorway to Fame in 1947, but he left DuMont for WPIX on May 15, 1948 to be a news announcer and weatherman.
On January 17, 1955, he appeared as "Officer Joe" and hosted The Clubhouse Gang, and showed the Little Rascals. WPIX lost the rights to The Little Rascals, and in September 1958, he switched to hosting The Three Stooges Funhouse, a showcase of The Three Stooges shorts which aired on WPIX weekdays until May 7, 1970, mostly weekdays at 5:30 pm. At one time, he was host of WPIX's The Dick Tracy Show as "Police Chief Joe".
Bolton also had cameos in two Three Stooges films: Stop! Look! and Laugh (1960), as a customer in a cafe; and in The Outlaws Is Coming (1965), the last feature film by The Three Stooges, which featured him and eight other local children television show hosts, all cast as villains.
Bolton retired in 1975 to Santa Monica, California, and died in 1986 at Santa Monica Hospital of a heart attack.
Bolton has two children: a daughter, Catherine Bolton of Manhattan; and a son, Joseph Reeves Bolton IV of Port Salerno, Florida.