El Brendel
| El Brendel | |
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Brendel in 1933
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| Born |
Elmer Goodfellow Brendel March 25, 1890 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | April 9, 1964 (aged 74) Hollywood, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Hollywood Forever Cemetery |
| Years active | 1926–1964 |
| Spouse(s) | Flo Bert (m. 1925; his death 1964) |
Elmer Goodfellow Brendel, known professionally as El Brendel /ˈɛl brɛnˈdɛl/ (March 25, 1890 – April 9, 1964), was a vaudeville comedian turned movie star, best remembered for his dialect routine as a Swedish immigrant. His biggest role was as "Single-0" in the sci-fi musical Just Imagine (1930), produced by Fox Film Corporation. His screen name was pronounced "El Bren-DEL".
He was born on March 25, 1890 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to an Irish mother and German immigrant father. Brendel, unlike his stage and film character, was not Swedish. He spoke standard American English without a trace of any other accent. He attended the University of Pennsylvania.
He entered vaudeville in 1913 as a German dialect comedian and married his vaudeville partner. Because of the anti-German sentiment brought about by the sinking of the Lusitania, Brendel developed a new character, one he would portray on stage and in films for the rest of his career: a good-natured, simple Swede, often called "Oley," "Ole," or "Ollie." During the 1910s and early 1920s, he appeared with his wife, vaudeville star Flo Bert, doing a married-couple routine. It was during this period that he coined his trademark lines, "Yee vizz!" and "Yumpin' yiminy!". He made his first stage appearance in 1921. He appeared in Cinderella on Broadway, Spice of 1922, Passing Show, and New York Whirl.
In 1926, he signed a contract with Famous Players Film Company and appeared in eight films there over the next two years, most memorably as the comic relief in Wings (1927) with Clara Bow and Buddy Rogers, a film which won the first Academy Award for Outstanding Production (an award that is comparable to today's Best Picture Oscar.) Brendel played the character Herman Schwimpf, a German-American whose patriotism is at first questioned when he volunteers for service in the U.S. Air Force.
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