James Barton(1890-1962)

Cited by Bing Crosby as one of his all-time favorite ten performers.

I am proud of my ancestry, and that it was of the theater and the American theater too, but I am far prouder of the fact that neither my father nor my grandfather handed down a joke. And it is my ambition to follow their example in this respect. Each of us wanted and wants all his jokes in his own generation if not entirely of his own generating.