Lou Bedell

Lewis Joseph "Lew" (or "Lou") Bedell (March 21, 1919 – July 6, 2000) was an American music business executive and comic entertainer who founded Era Records and then Doré Records in Los Angeles, California in the 1950s. Originally named Lewis Joseph Bedinsky, he also used the pseudonyms Louis Bideu and Billy Joe Hunter, among others.

Lewis Bedinsky was born in El Paso, Texas, the son of Joseph Bedinsky, a Jewish immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine, who owned a small garment factory in the town, and his wife Sara (née Newman) who had been born in New York City. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he moved with his mother and uncle, Max Newman, to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College and then Santa Barbara State College. In 1941, he and his mother changed their surname by decree to Bedell.

During World War II, he worked in an aircraft factory, but in 1946 he teamed up with college friend Doug Mattson to form a comedy duo. Bedell and Mattson appeared together in clubs in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, New York City and elsewhere, performing an act that involved them miming and clowning around on stage to current pop hits and comedy records such as those by Spike Jones. By the early 1950s, the pair had become resident comedians at Billy Gray's Band Box, a supper club on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. The pair split up in 1953, and Bedell began working as a solo comedian on Los Angeles TV station KTLA, as well as continuing in clubs. He also had a short-lived TV show, The Lew Bedell Show, on WOR-TV in New York City in the early 1950s.

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