Red Skelton’s Recipe For The Perfect Marriage
Comedian Red Skelton is shown with his wife, Lothian, in this December, 1976 file photo from the Rose Parade in Pasadena.
- Two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, have a little beverage, good food, and companionship. She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays.
- We also sleep in separate beds. Hers is in California, and mine is in Texas.
- I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.
- I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary. “Somewhere I haven’t been in a long time!” she said. So I suggested the kitchen.
- We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.
- She has an electric blender, electric toaster, and electric bread maker. She said, “There are too many gadgets and no place to sit down!” So I bought her an electric chair.
- My wife told me the car wasn’t running well because there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was. She told me, “In the lake.”
- She got a mudpack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.
- She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, “Am I too late for the garbage?” The driver said, “No, jump in!”.
- Remember: Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.
- I married Miss Right. I just didn’t know her first name was ‘Always’.
- I haven’t spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don’t like to interrupt her.
- The last fight was my fault though. My wife asked, “What’s on the TV?” I said, “Dust!”.
I was just a kid back then, but I can hear him say all of these in my mind’s eye.
I love it. These were the good old days when humor didn’t have to start with a four-letter word. It was just clean and simple fun.
And best of all, he always ended his programs with the words, “And May God Bless” with a big smile on his face.
Epiloge
In May 1958, Red was preparing to celebrate his son Richard’s tenth birthday. Richard was not only his child but also his light, his joy, and his reason to smile beyond the stage. But just ten days before that birthday, after a long battle with leukemia, Richard passed away. He was only nine years old. Red, the man known across America for making people laugh, suddenly had no laughter left within him. Friends said they had never seen him so silent, so broken. The world lost a child, but Red lost his heart.
As if that grief was not cruel enough, another blow came shortly after. Red fell down a flight of stairs. What seemed like a simple accident turned into something far more serious. He suffered an intense cardiac and asthma attack. Paramedics rushed him to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. The doctors later said, “If death was ten steps away, Red had already taken nine by the time he arrived.” He had almost slipped away.
But he didn’t. Red survived. Yet something had changed. After that moment, the Red Skelton who once danced freely through slapstick humor now carried a quiet weight behind his smile.
He still performed. He still made people laugh. But from then on, each joke came from a place deeper than before—a place touched by loss, softened by pain, and strengthened by love that endured even after heartbreak.