Slapstick, knockabout, comedy, acrobatics, singing. . . . We did everything.

Frank Mitchell’s athletic career in vaudeville included a 1934 headliner appearance at the Palace Theater in New York. For 78 years he has been a tough handball competitor. But he takes the most satisfaction from one of his last motion picture roles, that of a cowboy sidekick who kept falling off his horse. Mitchell lives in Van Nuys. I was born in New York City, in 1905, May 13th. I grew up in the real ghetto, the East Side. It was a fantastic neighborhood. You had everybody there, black, Irish, Chinese, Hungarian, Polish. George Burns lived, oh, maybe a couple of blocks away from where I lived. Jimmy Cagney, he came from the East Side, 10th and Avenue A. I lived on 12th.

I won a Chaplin contest when I’m only 11 1/2 years old, and they wouldn’t give it to me. They gave me second prize because I wasn’t 21. I was a comedy slapstick little fellow. I’d slide and do little walks and crabs and then fall and roll up on my head, and fall over on my fanny. Things like that.

A fellow from an acrobatic troupe saw me in a Chaplin contest when I was going on 13, and he brought me into comedy acrobatics. He used to throw me up in the air--I think I weighed about 63 pounds soaking wet--and he’d catch me. We called ourselves the Novelli brothers. He was 25 years old. He paid me $10 a week and board and clothes. And that’s how they took you out on the road. That was my entrance into show business.

They asked my mother, “How could you let him go into show business as an acrobat?” She says, “Well, I don’t know, he just tumbled out of my stomach when he was born.” I swear to God, that’s what my mother used to tell everybody.

After the tour the truant officer came around, and I had to go back to school until I was 14. The next May 13th I put my books down on the desk and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Marion. I’m going to go down to get my working papers.”

I had three or four partners, and then I found the right one, Jack Durant. We went out and played fairs and expositions in the Middle West, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Indiana, things like that. I was a very good tumbler by then, and we were in an Arab troupe.

One day I held the whole troupe, seven people, up in a pyramid just maybe for a count of two. Then they all jumped off. I just wanted to show the guy on the bottom I was much stronger than him. I probably was about 4-foot 6 or something like that. I weighed about 110.

Durant and I were together for about 10 years. Mitchell and Durant, slapstick, knockabout, comedy, acrobatics, singing, dancing and jokes. We did everything.

In 1927 we came out here to Los Angeles. We had a contract with Fox Studios for about three years. We did the first picture together with Shirley Temple, “Stand Up and Cheer.” We were united for “The Singing Kid,” Jolson’s picture in 1936.

Then my partner and I split up, and I got a whole series of Western pictures with Bill Elliott and Tex Ritter. I played Cannonball, a sidekick. I’ll tell you truthfully, the most loyal fans that I’ve ever had in my whole life are the Western fans. They never forget you.

I just came back from a Western film festival honoring Rex Allen in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was the biggest thrill I’ve ever had. I had never realized that I could get that much attention from anybody. I figured, “I guess it’s all over,” and this really revived me.

When I got down there, I was wearing this button with Frank Mitchell on it. I guess they didn’t remember Frank Mitchell. I says, “Well, I’m Cannonball.” “Cannonball!” They all started to run over, and before I knew it, I was signing autographs and taking pictures from morning until night.

The people were just swooning all over me, and here I am, I’m just a sidekick. They’d think I was the biggest star in pictures. Even the stars wanted to take pictures with me, like Rex Allen and Lash La Rue. And they treat me like a real something. You know, it’s a big kick to me. There’s nothing better than those Western fans.