"Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean"
(as featured in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1922)
as performed by: Ed Gallagher & Al Shean
Victor record 18941
Side A: Recorded on: 1922 07/21 martix #B-26703 Take 04
Side B: Recorded on: 1922 08/18 matrix #B-26728 Take 02
Recorded in New York
Gallagher & Shean was a highly successful musical comedy double act in vaudeville and on Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, consisting of Edward Gallagher (1873 – March 28, 1929) and Al Shean (real name "Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg"; May 12, 1868 – August 12, 1949); Shean was the maternal uncle of the Marx Brothers.
Gallagher and Shean remain best known for their theme song "Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean", which was a hit in the 1922 Ziegfeld Follies. Bryan Foy, son of stage star Eddie Foy and eldest member of the "Seven Little Foys", claimed to have written the song, but it is officially attributed to Gallagher and Shean. The song endured in popularity and was regularly tweaked and updated with additional verses; consequently, it exists in several different versions.
The song was recorded by Gallagher and Shean as two sides of a 10" 78rpm record in the Summer of 1922 for Victor Records. It would be recorded by others on other record labels. The song was extremely popular and well remembered.
Capitalizing on the post-King Tut craze for everything Egyptian, Gallagher and Shean appeared in Egyptian dress (Gallagher in the pith helmet and white suit of the tourist, Shean in the fez and oddly skirted jacket of a "native" Egyptian colonial).
In 1925, inventor Theodore Case made a short sound film of them in his “sound-on-film” process at his Auburn, New York studio; however, the film was lost in a fire at the Auburn studio in the mid-1950s. A scene from the film was seen briefly in the 1982 PBS documentary; "The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell". Currently survival status of the film is listed as:“unknown”.
In August 1931, Fleischer Studios released a short cartoon, Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean, as part of the Fleischer Screen Songs series. In this short, Jack Kenny (1886–1964) did the voice of Gallagher.
Ed Gallagher suffered a nervous breakdown after the partnership ended in 1925 and died in 1929; Al Shean worked occasionally thereafter as a solo character actor.The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical Ziegfeld Girl (1941) features a recreation of Gallagher and Shean's act with Al Shean in his familiar role and costume and character actor Charles Winninger portraying Gallagher. Also The Republic Pictures musical Atlantic City (1944) features a recreation of Gallagher and Shean's act with Al Shean and character actor Jack Kenny portraying Gallagher again.
