George Givot

George Givot was a comedian and actor who performed in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in film, radio, and television. Born in 1903, he grew up in Omaha and Chicago, where a radio station hired him after a journalism instructor tired of his classroom clowning, and Paul Ash helped launch his vaudeville career. He became one of the earliest Greek dialect comedians, using a comic Greek persona in nightclubs and on radio from the 1920s onward. On Broadway he appeared in The Constant Sinner, Pardon My English, and Mexican Hayride. His film work ranged from The Chief (1933) to China Gate (1957), and he starred in Flying with Music (1942). He supplied the voice of Tony in Disney's Lady and the Tramp (1955), singing Bella Notte. On television he hosted Bonnie Maid Versa-Tile Varieties in 1949, later appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. He died in 1984.