Lord Buckley born 5 April 1906

Lord Richard Buckley (born Richard Myrle Buckley; April 5, 1906 – November 12, 1960) was an American stand-up comedian and recording artist, who in the 1940s and 1950s created a character that was, according to The New York Times, "an unlikely persona ... part English royalty, part Dizzy Gillespie." 

Buckley's father, William Buckley, was from Manchester, England. He stowed away on a ship that eventually arrived in San Francisco. In California, William met Annie Bone. They married, and their son, Richard, was born in Tuolumne, a small town near Sonora, in a mountainous region where lumbering was a major industry. As children, Buckley and his sister, Nell, would often perform on the streets of Tuolumne, singing for coins from passersby. 

When he was a bit older, Buckley got a job in the local lumber camps as a "tree topper," which was considered an especially dangerous position. It involved climbing up to the very top of a tall tree, cutting off the tip and then securing ropes that would guide the rest of the tree as it was felled. After quitting his job in Tuolumne, he travelled to Mexico to work in the oilfields. He moved to Galveston, Texas where he got a job at the Million Dollar Aztec Theatre. 

By the mid-1930s, he was performing as emcee in Chicago at Leo Seltzer's dance marathons at the Chicago Coliseum, In the late 1930s he worked for Al Capone, who described Buckley as "the only person who can make me laugh". Capone set up Buckley with his own club Chez Buckley, on Western Avenue where he performed through the early 1940s. During World War II, Buckley performed extensively for armed services on USO tours, where he formed a lasting friendship with Ed Sullivan. 

In the 1950s, Buckley hit his stride with a combination of exaggeratedly aristocratic bearing and carefully enunciated rhythmic hipster slang. He was known for wearing a waxed mustache along with white tie and tails. He sometimes wore a pith helmet. Occasionally performing to music, he punctuated his monologues with scat singing and sound effects. His most significant tracks are retellings of historical or legendary events, like "My Own Railroad" and "The Nazz". The latter, first recorded in 1952, describes Jesus' working profession as "carpenter kitty." 

                                   

Other historical figures include Gandhi ("The Hip Gahn") and the Marquis de Sade ("The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis de Sade, the King of Bad Cats"). He retold several classic documents such as the Gettysburg Address and a version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." In "Mark Antony's Funeral Oration", he recast Shakespeare's "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" as "Hipsters, flipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies: knock me your lobes." Reportedly, some of his comic material was written for him by Hollywood "beatnik" actor Mel Welles. 

Lord Buckley appeared on Groucho Marx's popular TV program You Bet Your Life in 1956. In 1959, he voiced the beatnik character Go Man Van Gogh in "Wildman of Wildsville", an episode of the Bob Clampett animated series Beany and Cecil.  Buckley adopted his "hipsemantic" delivery from his peers Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Redd Foxx, Pearl Mae Bailey, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra, as well as Hipsters and the British aristocracy. 

Buckley enjoyed smoking marijuana. He wrote reports of his first experiences with LSD, under the supervision of Dr. Oscar Janiger, and of his trip in a United States Air Force jet. Lord Buckley claimed to have been married six times. He had a son, Fred Buckley. His final marriage was to dancer Elizabeth Hanson (whom he referred to in public as "Lady Buckley"), with whom he had a daughter Laurie (b. 1951) and a son Richard (b. 1952). 

In the autumn of 1960, Buckley's manager Harold L. Humes organized a series of club dates in New York City, and arranged for him to make another appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, on October 19, 1960, while Buckley was making a public appearance at the Jazz Gallery in St. Mark's Place in Manhattan, the New York Police Department (NYPD) stopped him over allegations he had "falsified information" on his application to get a New York City cabaret card; specifically he had omitted to record a 1941 arrest for marijuana possession. 

At a hearing two days later to have his card reinstated, Buckley was supported by more than three dozen major figures in the entertainment and arts world. Three weeks later, on November 12, 1960, Buckley died from a stroke at New York City's Columbus Hospital.His funeral was at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel at 81st Street and Madison Avenue in New York City on November 16, 1960. Buckley was cremated at the Ferndale Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. The scandal of Buckley's death, partially attributed to the seizure of his cabaret card, helped lead to the transfer of authority over cabaret cards from the police to the Licensing Department.

(Edited from Wikipedia)