Dick Weston American Ventriloquist & Martha Original Photograph #2 ....8" X 10"

Dick Weston Ventriloquist created.....(Aunt Martha and Clarence, Horatio Bear, Senator Hawkeye, Ma and Pa McGrew, Eddie 0'Conner... The star of numerous LasVegas revue shows,Weston's career is a stellar example of a performer headlining in the casino revue shows during the middle to late part of the century. He was born Earl Henry Estenson (1926-1996) in Minneapolis. At an early age, inspired by an Edgar Bergen broadcast, he found himself performing family shows with "Eddie O'Connor" (by Martin Stevens ,1904 -'1983), Later, he switched to the supper club circuit, before embarking on a career path that took "Dick Weston, Aunt Martha and Clarence" to the top ofthe marquee in LasVegas. His career included 28 months on the"Lido Show" at the Stardust Hotel; 15 months at the"Hello America" show and 12 months on"Pizzaz 7O's... both at the Desert Inn;  and in "Bravo Vegas" at the lmperial Palace in the 1980s before retiring into an active avocation as a remarkable painter of neo-impressionist paintings. His work was featured posthumously in "The Puppets and Pointillism of Dick Weston" at the Las Vegas Art Museum in 1997. Dick Weston created all of his own vent figures, with the help of puppet builders John Shirley (1917 -1993) and Lemuel Williams (unknown1954), All Weston creations are constructed of plastic wood and possess a distinctive rustic charm that became Weston's hallmark as a ventriloquist.The saucy "Aunt Martha" (constructed in 1954) and the inebriated "Clarence" (1959) helped him achieve his greatest fame. All ofthe other characters, except "Eddie 0'Connor,"were crafted in 1949 and were retired prior to his arival in Las Vegas in 1 959.

It is 8" X 10"...

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