By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
After nearly 35 years in the business, Frank O’Donnell is getting inducted into the Rhode Island Comedy Hall of Fame with a classic “roast” Saturday night.
O’Donnell, a Rhody household name who now does everything from emceeing, to stand-up to musical comedy, first got his feet wet when he was 23.
Just out of college, O’Donnell was working at Ann &Hope, and spent time listening to a local radio morning show. It was the late 70’s, and the morning team would do comedy impersonations and ask listeners which celebrity would come up next on their “Wheel of Impressions.”
When one woman caller suggested Perry Como, it sparked a comedic riff. For O’Donnell, it got his comedic juices flowing.
“I wrote a fake newspaper article,” said O’Donnell, who now provides real newspaper articles for both the Valley Breeze and 630wpro.com. In O’Donnell’s mock story Perry Como had died years earlier and was replaced by a Disney animatronic robot. He sent the piece into the station; they ate it up and read it on air.
After that O’Donnell began regularly writing for them, and even appeared on air.
It was just the beginning. As time went on, they asked O’Donnell to try his hand at stand up. They were having a talent show and needed a comedian.
“I’m not the guy that gets up on stage,” O’Donnell told them. Eventually, they twisted his arm.
“I finally said yes and worked for three weeks on getting an act together,” he said. He did a 15 minute set, a lengthy time slot even for seasoned performers. “I got two laughs which is way too few in 15 minutes, but it was really enough to keep me going.”
Shortly after his standup debut, O’Donnell reunited with his high schoolmate, Charlie Hall, who’ll host Saturday’s induction ceremony and roast. The duo started working together and collaborating.
In the 1980’s, O’Donnell saw his comedic writing rocket to success, when both Bob Hope and Jay Leno used his material.
O’Donnell gave Hope some Rhode Island-centric material when he visited the Ocean State in 1986, but he never used it. But a little while later, O’Donnell got a phone call at work.
“He called me at Ann & Hope,” O’Donnell recollected, saying he tried to play it cool around his co-workers.
Hope ended up using three of O’Donnell’s jokes during the Rhode Island 350th celebration, but O’Donnell was at his own gig in Portland, and only got to read about it the following day. Still, he said, it felt great.
Then in 1987, Leno gave him a ring. O’Donnell assembled a gang of friends and family to watch Leno during one of his stints as a Tuesday night guest host for Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show.”
But minutes ticked by, and Leno didn’t use any of O’Donnell’s material. He began thinking he might be in for a huge disappointment.
But all’s well that ends well: “The last joke of the night was mine,” said O’Donnell.
After realizing he could roll with the pros, O’Donnell mulled a move to LA.
“Was I good enough? Was I ready? I don’t know,” he said, thinking back.
But ultimately he decided he wanted to be a family man.
“It was a conscious decision,” he said about staying in Little Rhody. “Once we started having a family I decided I didn’t want to be on the road…I made the right decision.”
O’Donnell, a Providence native and North Providence resident, married his wife Karen, and the pair had four children, Elise 27, Kayla 23, Patrick 21 and Keri, who would be 19. Tragically, Keri was killed in a car accident when she was 15-years-old.
“Keri was very passionate about performing she loved everything about it,” said O’Donnell, who’s started a memorial fund in her name. “Most especially she loved to dance, and the money that we raise, all of it goes to kids that have a similar passion.”
The Keri Anne O’Donnell Scholarship Fund helps local kids with a love of the arts attend things like dance class and theater camp through scholarships and grants.
Saturday night’s Rhode Island Comedy Hall of Fame induction ceremony and roast will help benefit the scholarship fund.
Although the event is sold out, folks can still contribute by sending checks for the fund care of Walter Matisewski, CPA, 1011 Smithfield Avenue, Lincoln, RI 02865
For O’Donnell, being inducted into the Hall of Fame feels “kind of weird.”
“It’s not that I don’t care about it, I don’t look for like stuff like this,” he said. “It’s a little embarrassing, I just do my job.”
And O’Donnell’s job includes everything from making his professional acting debut earlier this summer in “Guys and Dolls” at Ocean State Theatre Company, to writing another “Ant’ny Claus” sequel, to performing in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” with Community Players in Pawtucket this month.
And let’s not forget all of the emcee and stand-up gigs in between, which typically end with an O’Donnell favorite: “I married an Italian girl and I’m Irish, so our wedding was fun half the crowd was drunk the other half was shooting at them.”
For someone who’s so used to the spotlight and the microphone, don’t expect O’Donnell to take Saturday’s roast sitting down.
“I get to talk last,” he said. “So be warned.”
For more information on Saturday’s event and the Rhode Island Comedy Hall of Fame, click here.
