Willie and Eugene Howard

Early life and career

Isidore and Wilhelm Levkowitz were born in Neustadt in the German part of Silesia to Leopold Levkowitz and his second wife, Pauline (née Glass), two of six children (three boys and three girls). The family immigrated to New York City and settled in Harlem about 1886. Their father was a Jewish cantor, who taught his sons to sing, hoping that they would follow his profession. However, both boys became intrigued by performing. The brothers, especially Willie, performed at amateur night shows at local burlesque houses. Their father was disappointed with their performing activity. He wanted Eugene to be a doctor and worried about Willie because he misbehaved in school. Their father changed his attitude when he saw them achieve success and even asked them for advice on how to get into show business.

Eugene studied business but decided to go on the stage. In his earliest attempts at performing, he billed himself as "Harry Lee, phenomenal boy tenor". His first professional theatre job, in 1900, was in the chorus of a Broadway musical, A Million Dollars. Upon being hired and hearing his name, the manager suggested that "Eugene Howard" would be a more suitable name, and Isidore adopted it permanently. Later that year, he had a small role in a Broadway play based on Quo Vadis. Next, he was in the chorus of The Strollers, and, in 1902, he was one of the Portuguese Twins in a tour of the musical The Belle of New York. Meanwhile, Willie had his first engagement in 1897 singing in the gallery of Lyon Palace on 110th Street as a boy soprano. He was hired in 1900 as a song-plugger to sing from the balcony at Proctor's 125th Street Theatre as he distributed water to customers. He did this while attending school, and had to leave early to make the 3:15 pm show. He soon was engaged to do the same during out-of-town performances of The Little Duchess (1901), but he was dismissed after the opening night, as his voice had begun to change. To compensate for the temporary loss of his singing voice, he began doing impersonations and started using the stage name Willie Howard. At one point in that formative year of 1901, he considered taking up boxing and appeared briefly as "Kid Lefko." He attended Cooper Union college.

Eugene and Willie then performed briefly with their middle brother, later known as Sam Howard, as Harry Lee (Eugene) and the Lee Brothers, playing in restaurants and museums. Eugene and Willie, in 1902, along with a friend, Thomas Potter Dunne, formed an act called "The Messenger Boys Trio". One sketch that they wrote was called "The Messenger Boy and the Thespian"; even after Dunne left the act, Willie and Eugene continued to perform this routine. Eugene and Willie built their reputation in vaudeville over the next decade, often billed as the Howard Brothers. They wrote a sketch that they toured widely, early on, called "The Porter and the Salesman". After a few years together, the brothers were earning high fees on the Orpheum circuit, and young Willie became the acknowledged leader of the act.

Vaudeville act and comic style

The brothers generally played wisecracking caricatures, using Jewish dialect humor, opera parodies (with Eugene as the tenor and Willie as the baritone), and rapid-fire comedy crosstalk. Diminutive, wild-haired, slumping Willie often portrayed a troublesome servant, such as a waiter or a bellhop, while well-fed, well-dressed Eugene, the straight man, played a self-satisfied authority figure, such as a manager, businessman or a customer. Willie assayed foreign accents, such as Spanish, Scottish, French, Russian and Chinese, but always laced with his Yiddish dialect, and also did impressions of popular vocalists, such as George Jessel, Al Jolson, Gallagher & Shean and Eddie Cantor. Their most famous comic routines "included 'French Taught in a Hurry' in which [they] did rapid doubletalk; 'Quartets from Rigoletto' [a parody], which [they] would perform with large, buxom ladies ([with Willie] stealing glances at their breasts the whole time); and 'Comes the Revolution', in which [Willie] would play a radical agitator" on a soapbox and Eugene would play a heckler. Variety magazine said of their act, "there is never a dull moment" and praised Eugene's "straighting" as well as Willie's gags. Of the brothers' approach to their work, Willie said:

"[A]ll fun-making must be well grounded and serious in its conception, and it is this basic seriousness of fun that leads to the best laugh production, which, after all, is the final test of all humor, on stage or off. In proof of this, you will notice that any good comedian always maintains a serious expression on his face, no matter how funny his lines may be; for let the actor realize that his lines are funny and laugh at them, ever so little, himself, and his audience immediately will freeze up. Consequently, in my impersonations, for example, I seriously study the person I wish to imitate and rehearse the impersonation many times in the serious vein, before I even attempt to give it a humorous twist. Then I try to insert the humor while still in the character of the person I am portraying. Thus, the basis of actuality is given to the impersonation."

Broadway and later years

Beginning in 1912, in between their vaudeville bookings, the brothers performed in Broadway shows, especially revues, including the Shuberts' series The Passing Show at the Winter Garden Theatre and later the George White's Scandals series. An early review in Variety magazine commented: "The Howards never fail to become a riot at the Garden", and George Jessel later said that Willie was "The best of all the revue comics, bar none." A review in The New York Times said: "Next to Al Jolson, Willie Howard is now the foremost of the Winter Garden entertainers." Willie appeared opposite the 19-year-old Ginger Rogers in the Gershwin musical, Girl Crazy, in 1930–1931. The brothers' Broadway shows were:

Eugene retired in 1940 to manage Willie and write material for him, although he occasionally appeared with him even afterwards. After Eugene's retirement, the Howards usually used Al Kelly as a straight man. Willie performed in several more Broadway shows, touring shows for the Shuberts and Mike Todd, and in night clubs.

Willie's last Broadway shows were:

The brothers also made a several short films together, including "Between the Acts of Opera" (1926), "The Music Makers" (1929) and "I'm Telling You" (1931). After this, Willie made several more films, including Millions in the Air (1935 – full length), Rose of the Rancho (1936 – full length), "The Affairs of Pierre" (1937), "The Smart Way" (1937), Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937– full length), "Pardon My Accident" (1938), "How to Go to a French Restaurant" (1941) and "On Guard" (1941).

Willie Howard's recordings

Willie Howard made several recordings:

Deaths

Willie had been suffering a liver ailment for six weeks and became ill during a Philadelphia tryout for the Broadway-bound show Along Fifth Avenue. He died the day before the show opened in New York, in 1949, at the age of 65. He was survived by his widow Emily (née Miles). They had no children. He is buried in Paramus, New Jersey, in Cedar Park Cemetery, Emerson.

Eugene, who had been living in Jackson Heights, Queens, died in 1965 at Park West Hospital, in New York City, aged 84. He was predeceased by his wife, Maud (née Fisher) of London, whom he had married in 1910, who died in 1964.