Credit: Image Donated by Corbis-Bettmann
After running away from home to pursue a career in vaudeville, Philadelphian Isaiah Edwin Leopold (1886-1966) took the stage name "Ed Wynn" to save his family the embarrassment of having a comedian as a relative. Starting as an onstage assistant for W. C. Fields, Wynn began to star in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1914. Working "clean," he enjoyed a long career on Broadway, radio, and television, and in his later years won praise as a serious actor, earning an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in 1959 for his role in The Diary of Anne Frank.
