Frank Nelson

Frank Nelson was an American comedic actor whose career began in radio and expanded into television and film. Born in Colorado Springs, he was a teenager when he performed as a grown man on a Denver station, KOA, in 1926, and he moved to Hollywood in 1929 for local dramatic broadcasts. National exposure came with Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel, the early 1930s sitcom starring Groucho and Chico Marx. Nelson gained fame on Jack Benny's radio program, usually playing an unnamed sales clerk, dentist or customer service worker who stayed courteous to everyone but Benny, a gag he repeated on Benny's television show after 1950. He later appeared in sitcoms including The Hank McCune Show and I Love Lucy and voiced cartoons such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons and The Snorks, while serving as AFTRA president from 1954 to 1957. His film roles included Down Memory Lane (1949).