George Gobel

George Leslie Gobel (May 20, 1919 – February 24, 1991) was an American comedian and actor. He was best known as the star of his own weekly NBC television show, The George Gobel Show, which ran from 1954 to 1960 (the last season on CBS, alternating with The Jack Benny Program).

Early years

He was born George Leslie Goebel in Chicago, Illinois, His father, Hermann Goebel, was a butcher and grocer who had emigrated to the United States with his parents in the 1890s from the Austrian Empire. His mother, Lillian (MacDonald) Goebel, was born in Illinois to immigrant parents from Scotland. He was an only child.

Gobel graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago in 1937.

Gobel initially pursued an entertainment career as a country music singer, appearing on the National Barn Dance on WLS radio, and later on KMOX in St. Louis. Gobel enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and served as a flight instructor in AT-9 aircraft at Altus, Oklahoma and later in B-26 Marauder bombers at Frederick, Oklahoma. In a 1969 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Gobel joked about his stateside service, "There was not one Japanese aircraft that got past Tulsa." After his discharge at the end of the war, he switched from singing to comedy.