Howard, Willie

Howard, Willie [né Wilhelm Levkowitz] (1886?–1949), comedian. Born in Germany, he grew up on New York's Lower East Side and made his debut in vaudeville in 1897 as a boy soprano. He later appeared with Anna Held in The Little Duchess (1901). In 1903 the tiny, tousle‐haired, impish‐faced Willie joined his taller, heavy‐set, dapper brother Eugene HOWARD [né Isidore] (1880–1965), who had made his debut in the chorus of The Belle of New York (1897) in a vaudeville act called “The Messenger Boy and the Thespian.” At about the same time, Willie began his well‐liked imitations of other popular performers. The brothers remained in vaudeville for ten years. Two of their most famous turns were “French Taught in a Hurry,” in which Willie played a language teacher whose French was more Yiddish and broken English than Gallic, and a spoof of the quartet from Rigoletto, in which Willie was a singer who could not keep his eyes off the prima donna's huge bust. In 1912 they joined the first Passing Show, remaining with later editions and in other Shubert revues until 1922. They then returned to vaudeville until appearing in George White's Scandals of 1926 and several later editions. They also appeared in Ballyhoo of 1932, the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, and The Show Is On (1937). Willie played without Eugene in Sky High (1925) and Girl Crazy (1930) and, after Eugene's retirement in 1940, in Crazy with the Heat (1941), My Dear Public (1943), and a 1948 revival of Sally.