Edwards, Cliff (actually, Clifton A.; Ukulele Ike)

Edwards, Cliff (actually, Clifton A.; Ukulele Ike), American singer and actor; b. Hannibal, Mo., June 14, 1895; d. Hollywood, July 17, 1971. Edwards was a major star in vaudeville and on records in the 1920s. In the late 1920s he moved into film acting, frequently playing character parts through the 1940s. He introduced the songs “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo’bye),” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” and “When You Wish upon a Star,” the last in the Walt Disney animated film Pinocchio. In his later years he was employed primarily by Disney.

Edwards took up playing the ukulele as a newspaper boy to attract and entertain his customers. He went to St. Louis as a teenager and began performing in saloons, then in carnivals, before finally breaking into vaudeville. In Chicago in 1918, working with songwriter/pianist Bob Carleton, he introduced the hit novelty song “Ja-Da.” It was there he acquired his nickname, Ukulele Ike, from a waiter who couldn’t remember his name. He was part of an act with singer/dancer Pierce Keegan called “Jazz as Is” and went to N.Y. as part of comedian Joe Frisco’s troupe in 1920. His first appearance in the legitimate theater came in The Mimic World of 1921 (N.Y, Aug. 15, 1921), which ran for 27 performances. In 1922 he introduced “Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo’bye)” in vaudeville, though the song became identified with Al Jolson after Jolson interpolated it into his show Bombo.

Edwards reached the pinnacle of success in vaudeville by headlining at the Palace in N.Y. in April 1924. He began recording, scoring his first hit with “Where the Lazy Daisies Grow” in June 1924. He was a featured performer in the George Gershwin musical Lady, Be Good! (N.Y, Dec. 1,1924), in which he closed the first act performing “Fascinating Rhythm.” He scored record hits with that and the title song in the spring of 1925. During the course of the show’s 330-performance run, he interpolated his own “Insufficient Sweetie” into the score. He then appeared in the Jerome Kern musical Sunny (N.Y, Sept. 23, 1925), performing “I’m Moving Away,” which he wrote with Irving Caesar; the show ran 517 performances.

Edwards scored one of the biggest hits of his career with his recording of “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” which was a best-seller in October 1928. He was appearing at the Orpheum in L.A. when he signed a four- year film contract with MGM, making his movie debut in Hollywood Revue of 1929, in which he performed “Singin’ in the Rain,” which he recorded for a best-seller in August 1929. He worked frequently in films over the next few years, notably interpolating songs of his own into Doughboys (1930) and Laughing Sinners (1931).

Cutting down on his film work after his MGM contract expired in 1932, Edwards returned to vaudeville, once again performing at the Palace in August, and launched his first radio show, Clif Edwards, Ukulele Ike, on NBC. Undeniably, however, his career went into decline in the early 1930s, as vaudeville became defunct and the record business shrank dramatically during the Depression. At the same time Edwards’s lifestyle—which included profligate spending, an addiction to morphine, and alcoholism—contributed to his difficulties; he filed for bankruptcy for the first of three times during his life in March 1933.

The Paramount feature Take a Chance, released in the fall of 1933, featured Edwards singing “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” which became his first hit record in four years and helped reestablish his career. He was also notable in the Fox feature George White’s 1935 Scandals, released in the spring of 1935, and at the end of the year he returned to Broadway in the latest stage edition of the revue George White’s Scandals (N.Y, Dec. 25, 1935), which had a run of 110 performances.

Edwards was back at MGM by 1937, playing supporting parts in many of the company’s films, including Gone with the Wind (1939). In 1940 he gave voice to Jiminy Cricket in the animated Disney classic Pinocchio, singing “When You Wish upon a Star,” which won an Academy Award for Best Song. Edwards formed a permanent association with Disney, also lending his voice to Dumbo (1941). But in the early 1940s most of his many film appearances came in supporting roles in Western B movies made by the Columbia and RKO studios. In RKO’s The Avenging Rider (1942) he got to sing one of his own songs, “Minnie My Mountain Moocher.”

Edwards returned to radio in the late 1940s, appearing frequently on Rudy Vallee’s show. At the dawn of television he became a regular on CBS’s The 54th Street Revue, a variety show, in May 1949, and the same month the network also launched the 15-minute live program The Cliff Edwards Show, which ran through the summer.

Edwards worked for Walt Disney Productions in the 1950s, especially on the Disneyland and Mickey Mouse Club television shows. His final film credit came when his voice was used in the cartoon Western The Man from Button Willow in 1965. In his last years Edwards continued to be supported by the Disney organization, which paid for his stay in the nursing home where he died at the age of 76.

Selling a reported 74 million records in his career and appearing in as many as 100 films, Edwards had an extensive and successful career. Historically, his casual, folksy style exerted an important influence on the soft-voiced radio crooners who followed him, especially Bing Crosby.

—William Ruhlmann