Frank Mitchell; Partner in Knockabout Comedy Team

Frank Mitchell, the short, sturdy acrobat who teamed with the darkly handsome Jack Durant to form one of the most successful knockabout comedy teams in the history of vaudeville, has died.

His daughter, Barbara Cloud, said her father died Monday of a heart attack at a North Hollywood convalescent home. He was 85 and had been seen most recently in small supporting roles in films and television.

Born in New York’s East Side ghetto, Mitchell began doing pratfalls and comedy as a child in neighborhood talent shows.

But it was not until he teamed with the late Durant, a tall, striking dancer, that he became successful.

He and Durant began as a dance team at Loew’s State Theater in Los Angeles about 1925, according to the book, “The Vaudevillians,” by Bill Smith. Their debut was less than successful and they decided to combine acrobatics, dance and flailing comedy in the act.

They took that act into the Broadway show “Hit the Deck” and stayed for 18 months.

In 1927, they began the first of a string of appearances at New York’s legendary Palace Theater, then the Mecca of vaudeville.

George Burns and other performers encouraged them to go to London’s Palladium, where posters hailed them as “The Greatest Comedy Act in the World.” Critical notices agreed.

They returned to New York in George White’s “Scandals” and Earl Carroll’s “Vanities,” and the entertainment newspaper Variety reported that their success had produced “more imitators than Al Jolson.”

Invited to Hollywood, they were seen in the Shirley Temple film “Stand Up and Cheer” in 1934 and Jolson’s “The Singing Kid” in 1936. They also appeared in an early Alice Faye picture, “Now I’ll Tell.”

Durant opted to return to New York and broke up the act, with Mitchell remaining in Los Angeles, where his acrobatic and riding skills were used in a series of William (Wild Bill) Elliott pictures. He also became known to a generation of youngsters as “Cannonball,” Tex Ritter’s sidekick in several B films.

He is survived by another daughter, two granddaughters and three great-grandchildren.