Performer Irving Klein, 97, Dies

Irving Klein, the Sherman Oaks man who called himself the world’s oldest living entertainer, has died at age 97.

Klein was a member of the singing and dancing “Four Aces” vaudeville act from 1903 until 1944. In the years that followed, he acted in small-time plays and worked as a stunt man in Westerns and as a double for film star Adolphe Menjou.

Most recently, Klein had been performing song and dance in convalescent hospitals around the Valley for $35 a show and entertaining without charge at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital. He had planned to marry his 47-year-old performing partner, Patty Hamilton, in December.

“I’ll never retire,” the Brooklyn native said several weeks ago during an interview for a story that ran in Valley View on Oct. 16. “I’ll die with my boots on.”

Klein was in good health until he suffered a mild stroke last week. He was admitted to Sherman Oaks Community Hospital and died Monday. Services were Tuesday at Mount Sinai Memorial Park.

“I’m what they call a happy-go-lucky individual,” he said recently. “I live for today and I don’t worry about tomorrow because I don’t know if I’m going to live until tomorrow.”