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Eddie Cantor
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==Tributes== Cantor was profiled on ''[[This Is Your Life (American franchise)|This Is Your Life]]'', a program in which an unsuspecting person (usually a celebrity) would be surprised on live television by host [[Ralph Edwards]], with a half-hour tribute. Cantor was the only subject who was told of the "surprise" in advance; he was recovering from a heart attack, and it was felt that the shock might harm him.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}} In 1951 he received an honorary doctorate from [[Temple University]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Humber, Charles J.|title=Cigar Box Lithographs: The Inside Stories Uncovered|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gsp7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA73|page=73|year=2018|publisher=FriesenPress|isbn=978-1-5255-4060-8}}</ref> There was an Eddie Cantor caricature featured in [[The Comedy Store|Comedy Store]], and flashing lights on it marked the end of auditions for comedians. <ref>{{Citation |title=Louis CK On David Letterman Full Interview | date=March 3, 2015 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQc7M6lE308 |language=en |access-date=2022-03-01}}</ref> Warner Bros., in an attempt to duplicate the box-office success of ''[[The Jolson Story]]'', filmed a big-budget [[Technicolor]] feature film ''[[The Eddie Cantor Story]]'' (1953). The film found an audience but might have done better with someone else in the leading role. Actor [[Keefe Brasselle]] played Cantor as a caricature with high-pressure dialogue and bulging eyes wide open; the fact that Brasselle was considerably taller than Cantor did not lend realism. Eddie and Ida Cantor were seen in a brief prologue and epilogue set in a projection room, where they are watching Brasselle in action; at the end of the film, Eddie tells Ida "I never looked better in my life"... and gives the audience a knowing, incredulous look.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}} [[George Burns]], in his memoir ''All My Best Friends'', claimed that Warner Bros. created a miracle producing the movie in that "it made Eddie Cantor's life boring".<ref>All My Best Friends, by George Burns and David Fisher, Putnam, 1989, p. 162.</ref> Probably the best summary of Cantor's career is on one of the ''[[Colgate Comedy Hour]]'' shows.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Pondillo|first1=Bob|title=Racial Discourse and Censorship on NBC-TV, 1948β60|journal=Journal of Popular Film & Television|date=2005|volume=33|issue=2|page=106|doi=10.3200/JPFT.33.2.102-114|s2cid=192199749}}</ref> Re-issued on DVD as ''Eddie Cantor in Person'', the hour-long episode is a virtual video autobiography, with Eddie recounting his career, singing his greatest hits, and recreating his singing-waiter days with another vaudeville legend, his old pal [[Jimmy Durante]]. Cantor appears as a recurring character, played by [[Stephen DeRosa]], on the series ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]''.
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