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Louis Francis Cristillo aka Lou Costello (March 6,
1906 – March 3, 1959) was an United
States|American actor, producer and comedian from
Paterson, New Jersey. He is best known as half of
the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, with Bud
Abbott. 

Costello was born in Paterson, New Jersey. In 1927
he went to Hollywood to become an actor, but found
work as a laborer at MGM and Warner Brothers. He
worked temporarily as a stuntman, and then
eventually became a burlesque comedian. 

In the early 1930s, Costello crossed paths with a
talented straight man named Bud Abbott. They
fornally teamed up in 1936, and
performed together in burlesque shows, minstrel
shows, vaudeville and movie houses. 


In 1938 they received national exposure for the
first time by performing on the Kate Smith radio
show, which led to the duo signing with
Universal_Studios|Universal the following year.
Abbott and Costello appeared in their first film
in 1940, a movie entitled One Night in the
Tropics. Although Abbott and Costello were only
filling supporting roles, they stole the film with
their classic routine Who's On First?. (Abbott and
Costello are the only two non-baseball players
honored in the Baseball Hall of Fame museum in
Cooperstown, New York|Cooperstown, New York,
because of their legendary Who's On First?
routine.) The team's breakthrough picture,
however, was Buck Privates which was released in
1941. They immediately became the top ranking
comedy stars in Hollywood and fans looked upon
each of their pictures as a major event. Many of
their films showed them as bumbling servicemen
such as In The Navy and Abbott and Costello Join
The Air Force. An amusing footnote to this is the
Japanese military high command obtained copies of
the team's films and showed them to Japanese
soldiers in all seriousness! They told them that
was how American military people really acted. In
1943, Costello had an attack of rheumatic fever
and was unable to work for a year and a half. A
tragic event shadowed his comeback. On the day
Costello returned to do the team's popular radio
show, his infant son drowned in an accident. He
did the show as a tribute to his memory. People
who knew Lou Costello said that he never recovered
from the loss of his child. 

Abbott and Costello split up in 1957, after
troubles with the Internal Revenue Service that
left both men broke. 

After making one unsuccessful film as a solo act
(The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock) Costello died in
1959 from a myocardial infarction|heart attack and
was interred in the Calvary Cemetery in East Los
Angeles, California.