A birthday bash for Lou Costello

THERE’S an annual Bud Abbott and Lou Costello celebration every year in Fort Lee, N.J. -- Costello was born in nearby Patterson -- and this year’s festivities marked the centennial of the roly-poly Costello, who died of a heart attack just a few days shy of his 53rd birthday in 1959.

Now the Fort Lee Film Commission is coming west for a three-day Lou Costello tribute at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills.

The Saturday evening program features a short tribute reel; a restored print of a 1948 Costello-produced documentary, “10,000 Kids and a Cop,” about the Lou Costello Jr. Recreation Center in Boyle Heights, and the premiere of “The Lou Costello Project,” a new documentary made by Andie Hicks of the Mary Pickford Foundation with a group of teens from the recreation center.

Next Sunday and Monday’s programming features vintage A&C; comedies including “Ride ‘Em Cowboy,” “Hit the Ice,” “Here Come the Co-Eds” and “In Society.”

Chris Costello, Lou’s youngest daughter, hadn’t seen “10,000 Kids and a Cop” until it was screened in Fort Lee in March. “I was like, ‘Wow. It’s pretty good.’ It was his way of putting together a promo film so people would get an interest in the youth center and possibly help with donations.”

The center, she says, opened in 1947 as a memorial to her brother, Lou Jr., who drowned in 1943 before his first birthday. Her father, she explains, loved children and wanted “to provide them with a place where they could be safe and off the street. What’s interesting today is that there are second, third and fourth generations who continue to go to the center.”

Abbott and Costello were both working in burlesque when they officially teamed up in 1936. Hollywood beckoned in 1939 after they performed their signature routine “Who’s on First” on the “Kate Smith Radio Show” in 1938.

They became one of the biggest box office draws at Universal during the 1940s, headlining such comedies as “Buck Privates,” “Hold That Ghost,” “Time of Their Lives” and “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.”

As the quality of their movies began to slide, the duo turned to TV in 1952 with the CBS series “The Abbott & Costello Show,” which aired for two seasons. The two split in 1957, a year after their last film together, “Dance With Me Henry.” Costello made one film before his death; Abbott died in 1974.

Unlike a lot of other comedy teams of the time, such as the Three Stooges or the Ritz Brothers, Abbott and Costello always have had a strong female following.

“We have a lot of women in the fan club,” says Costello. “Of course, it’s because Dad is so cute and naive, you just want to mother him. People were a little bit more prone to build empathy for Dad because he was always getting slapped around. He was sweet. He was like a little boy who didn’t grow up.”

Though her father got most of the laughs on screen, Costello credits Abbott with being “the ultimate straight man. Unfortunately, he never received the accolades he should have. Bud Abbott was one of the most gentle human beings on the face of the planet. Lou was very aggressive -- he was the one who would butt up against the studio heads and Bud was very laid back and very sweet. But you turn the camera on and -- boom -- he regained that character.”

The duo, she says, were notorious for pulling pranks on their sets. “They would cellophane the toilets,” Costello says. As they worked, “they had people around them from burlesque to keep the energy level up. Dad and Bud were two of the people who were the initiators of the wrap party.”

It’s often been said over the decades that the two didn’t get along and that their split was acrimonious, but Costello says that was far from the truth.

“Bud did an interview once and said that ‘Lou and I have spent 25 years working together. We have had our ups and downs, but we are friends.’ That’s what I try to get across to the fans. Who doesn’t have a fight? It’s healthy in a way. It was those differences that made them who they were. That is what produced the magic.”

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Greetings From New Jersey

Centennial Tribute to New Jersey-Born Film Comic Lou Costello

Where: Fine Arts Theatre, 8556 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly HIlls

When: Saturday through June 26

Price: $5 to $10

Contact: (310) 360-0455 or go to www.fortleefilm.org

Saturday: “10,000 Kids and a Cop,” “The Lou Costello Project,” 7:30 p.m.

Next Sunday: “In the Navy,” “Hold That Ghost,” 2 p.m.; “Ride ‘Em Cowboy,” “Hit the Ice,” 6:15 p.m.

June 26: “In Society,” “Here Come the Co-Eds.” 7:30 p.m.