Al Shean

Shean was born in Dornum, Kingdom of Prussia on May 12, 1868, the son of Fanny and Levi or Louis Schoenberg. His father was a magician. His sister, Minnie, married Sam "Frenchie" Marx; their sons would become known as the Marx Brothers.

After making a name for himself in vaudeville, Shean teamed up with Edward Gallagher to create the act Gallagher and Shean. While the act was successful, the men apparently did not like each other much. After their act's final Ziegfeld Follies pairing, Shean went on to perform solo in eight Broadway shows, even playing the title character in Father Malachy's Miracle.

Shean had some solo film roles: as the piano player, known as "The Professor" in San Francisco (1936), as grandfather in The Blue Bird (1940), as a priest in Hitler's Madman (1943), and in some three dozen other films. He and Gallagher also made an early sound film at the Theodore Case studio in Auburn, New York, in 1925.^[8]

He died on August 12, 1949.^[9]

Shean's son, also named Al Shean, worked on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.^[10]

Shean is reputed to have written the Marx Brothers' first (moderately) successful vaudeville sketch on butcher paper at Minnie and Frenchie's kitchen table one night while he was visiting.^{[citation needed]}

• Gallagher and Shean