Demand May Grow for Clown Artwork Skelton Produced

NEWPORT BEACH —  Comedian Joey Bishop got a surprise Wednesday when two art dealers showed up at his door in Newport Beach. The three lithographs they brought him, by his late friend Red Skelton, included one of Bishop as a clown.

Bishop, 79, who had been friends with Skelton about 50 years, said he had forgotten about that painting, and had “the thrill of my life,” when the employees of Pagliacci, a gallery in Newport Beach that carries much of Skelton’s art, offered him the works, which he said he would buy.

Prices at the gallery are slated to rise today at Pagliacci, which specializes in clown art, according to employee Edie Calvitti.

She noted that Skelton, who died Wednesday at age 84, signed all of the lithographs a second time before they were sold, so those with two signatures will now be more valuable.

“It’s supply and demand,” she said. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s very scarce.”

Steve Wallace, 50, shopping at Pagliacci for his wife, Barbara, was worried that speculators will drive up prices of the comedian’s paintings.

“I want a piece of history,” he said. “I buy stocks for investments. These are for heirlooms. They’ll hang in my house and be there forever.”

Wallace, who said he’s a longtime fan of Skelton’s comedy, has one of the comedian’s clown paintings in a hallway of his home.

“Every time you walk by, it’s a smile every morning,” he said.

The walls of Pagliacci are filled with paintings of clowns riding balloons, wearing a turquoise bolo tie and Western garb, playing violin, saying grace over a can of pork and beans, and even surfing with an ironing board.

Calvitti said the canvas lithographs they sell were printed in series of 5,000, and cost about $1,000 each. But store owners Jonathan Wood and Bob Lemon are en route from their main store in Sarasota, Fla., home of the Ringling Circus Museum, to adjust the prices, she said.

Other characters of Skelton’s are portrayed in his paintings and on figurines in the store, including “Freddie the Freeloader” and the “Mean Widdle Kid.”

“Do you have any Clem Kadiddlehopper?” asked Jim Hake of Anaheim while shopping with his wife.

“Impossible. Those have been gone for years,” Calvitti replied.

Bishop said his old friend “loved being a clown,” recalling a vaudeville sketch in which Skelton played a soda jerk sickened by the mention of chocolate. But he noted Skelton’s dramatic talent, as when he played an aging veteran gamely trying to stand and salute the flag during a parade.

“He was a dear friend. I adored him. He was just a great human being.”

Wallace said he’s glad to see Skelton’s style living on in modern-day comics such as Robin Williams.

“Everybody dies,” Wallace said. “I guess you just think, you’re glad he was here.”