Arnold Stang

Arnold Sidney Stang (September 28, 1918 – December 20, 2009) was an American actor and comedian. Recognized by his small stature and squawky, Brooklyn-accented speaking voice, he steadily worked on the stage, radio, and television and provided animation voice-over for 70 years. He was the voice of Top Cat in the cartoon series, Frank Sinatra's best friend in The Man with the Golden Arm, and one of the hapless gas station owners in the all-star comedy film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Arnold Stang was born September 28, 1918, in Manhattan, New York City. His parents were Anna and Harold Stang. Stang was raised in Brooklyn and began acting in radio shows when he was nine.

Stang claimed he gained his break in radio by sending a postcard to a New York station requesting an audition, was accepted, then bought his own ticket to New York from Chelsea, Massachusetts with the money set aside for his mother's anniversary gift. Though his widow, JoAnne Stang, explained upon his death that this story was untrue, Stang did work on New York–based network radio shows as a teenager, appearing on children's programs such as The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour and Let's Pretend. By 1940, he had graduated to teenaged roles, appearing as Seymour on The Goldbergs.

In October 1941, director Don Bernard hired Stang to do commercials on the CBS program Meet Mr. Meek, but decided Stang's constantly cracking voice would hurt the ads. Instead, Bernard ordered scriptwriters to come up with a role for Stang. He next appeared on the summer replacement show The Remarkable Miss Tuttle with Edna May Oliver in 1942 and replaced Eddie Firestone Jr. in the title role of That Brewster Boy when Firestone joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943.

Comedian Henry Morgan made him a sidekick on his program in fall 1946. Stang appeared in similar roles the following year on radio shows with Eddie Cantor and Milton Berle. He also did the voice of Jughead for a short while on the Archie Andrews radio show when it was broadcast by NBC, opposite future sitcom star Bob Hastings as Archie.^{[citation needed]}

By this time Stang had appeared in a number of movies, including My Sister Eileen, So This Is New York, and They Got Me Covered. He appeared on Broadway in Sailor Beware, All In Favor and Same Time Next Week, where he first worked with Berle. A notable screen credit was "Sparrow" in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).

Stang moved to the then-new field of commercial television in the late 1940s. He had a recurring role in The School House on the DuMont Television Network in 1949. He was a regular on Eddie Mayehoff's short-lived situation comedy Doc Corkle in fall of 1952 as well as comedy relief on Captain Video and His Video Rangers as Clumsy McGee. Then Stang made a guest appearance on Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater on May 12, 1953 and joined him as a regular (Francis the Stagehand) the following September, often berating or heckling the egocentric star for big laughs. Stang also had guest roles on several variety shows of the day including The Colgate Comedy Hour. In early 1951, Stang appeared on Henry Morgan's Great Talent Hunt, a take-off of The Original Amateur Hour, as "Gerard", supposedly recruiting "talent" for Morgan. In 1954 he became a panelist on the Goodson-Todman game show The Name's the Same.

Edward Montagne had produced movie short subjects starring Arnold Stang in the early 1950s. Montagne recruited Stang to join his McHale's Navy spinoff Broadside and offered him co-star billing. Stang was then co-starring with the national touring company of the Broadway hit A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and left the show on October 3, 1964 to join Montagne (the play ran six more weeks, with Gil Lamb in the Stang role). "I was originally scheduled to be in the show [Broadside] when it went on the air last fall," recalled Stang in 1965, "but I was tied up with the road show of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I couldn't get out of the commitment until now." Stang appeared midway through the Broadside run, having missed the first 21 episodes. He co-starred in the remaining 11 episodes as outspoken master chef Stanley Stubbs.