Person Biography:
Wilkie Mahoney was born on his family's homestead in San Miguel, California, a farming and ranching community in San Luis Obispo County that enveloped an old Spanish mission. He grew up with a strong interest in dramatics, sparked by the chance to see the most popular performers of the day when his father was appointed county recorder and the family moved to San Luis Obispo.
Mahoney attended Santa Clara University, but struggled to find acting jobs in Hollywood. He later took a job as an editor for humor-magazine publisher "Captain Billy" Fawcett and moved to the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale.
In the early 1930s, Mahoney started pitching gags on a freelance basis and became a writer for radio personality Ben Bernie's show. He followed Bernie to New York and sold Milton Berle the first joke the comic ever paid for. This led to a successful career as a writer for many famous comedians, including Bob Hope, Al Jolson, and Red Skelton.
Mahoney transitioned to writing for the big screen, co-writing the screenplay for the 1939 film "Some Like It Hot" and later writing for films such as "Caught in the Draft" and "Brewster's Millions." He left Hollywood abruptly in 1952 and returned to San Luis Obispo to care for his ailing mother and elderly father.
In retirement, Mahoney continued to write humor and confined it to a trio of newspaper columnists who shared his musings with their readers. He was working on a book, "Thirty Years in a Haunted Joke Book," when his health took a turn for the worse and prevented him from finishing it.
