Illinois Hall of Fame: Bob Bell

By Mark Rhoads

"Possibly no clown has been seen for a longer period by more people than Bob Bell as WGN's Bozo."  This citation comes from the write-up for Emmy Award-winning actor Bob Bell when he was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1996.  It is estimated that Bob Bell as Bozo the Clown was seen at various times in thirty million TV households not just in the Chicago area but nationwide due to the fact that so many cable companies carried WGN-TV between 1978 and 1984.

The character of Bozo the Clown was purchased in 1960 from original owners to be sold to local TV franchises.  Not that many TV stations specialized in locally produced programming for children but WGN-TV had long made children's shows one of its staples along with movies and sports.

Bob Bell played Bozo on WGN from the fall of 1961, when the new color studio was ready on Bradley Place, to 1984 when he was replaced in the title role by Joey D'Auria. 

Bob Bell was born January 18, 1922 in Flint, Michigan where he grew up.  His father worked for General Motors and he had two brothers.  After high school, Bob went to Arizona where he worked at late Depression era jobs such as a car hop, a lumberjack, and digging ditches.  He appeared as an extra in in the role of a U.S. cavalryman in the film Arizona.   He also helped build a set for the movie Old Tuscon. 

Bob Bell was partly blind in his right eye but memorized the eye chart in order to enlist in the Marines in 1941 at the start of World War II.  He was found out a year later and given a medical discharge but got back into service almost at once with the help of a sympathetic Navy doctor.  He served in the Navy in San Francisco and then in the Phlippines when it was given its independence from the US in 1946.

After his discharge, Bell worked for different radio and TV stations in the midwest and was paired with Wally Phillips on WLW-TV and WLW Radio in Cincinatti, Ohio in 1953.  In 1956, Bob and Wally and producer Don Sandburg all came to WGN TV and radio from Cincinatti.  Wally eventually made his own popular show in WGN Radio while Bob was a general staff announcer on TV.  Bob was in a black and white version of the Bozo show starting in June 1960 but the show went on hiatus in January 1961 until the studios could move from Tribune Tower to Bradley Place on the northwest side.

When Bozo's Circus went on national cable and satellite in 1978, the waiting list for tickets passed the ten year mark. Parents whose children were born in 1979 wrote to WGN hoping to get tickets to the show for a tenth birthday party.  During almost forty years from 1961 to the last show in August 2001, different versions of the Bozo program in different days and time slots still benefitted from one of the best ensemble casts ever assembled for children's television including Ringmasters Ned Locke and later Frazier Thomas (also former Prime Minister to Garfield Goose and one of the hosts of Family Classics movies), Ray Rayner as Oliver O. Oliver, Bob Trendler as Mr. Bob, Don Sandburg as Sandy the Tramp, Roy Brown as Cooky the Cook, Marshall Brodien as Wizzo the Wizard and the second Bozo Joey D'Auria who played the role until 2001.

Bob and his wife Carol Bell raised four children and after Bob retired they moved from Deerfield to Lake San Marcos, California where Bob was president of the Kiwanis Club and raised money for local school programs.  Bob died on December 8, 1997 in California from heart failure at 75.  About four months later in April 1998, Gov. Jim Edgar and Mayor Richard M. Daley both proclaimed Bob Bell Day in the State of Illinois and City of Chicago.  In honor of the event, a few blocks of Addison Street near the WGN studio posted new street signs that say "Bob Bell Way."

By Mark Rhoads

"Possibly no clown has been seen for a longer period by more people than Bob Bell as WGN's Bozo."  This citation comes from the write-up for Emmy Award-winning actor Bob Bell when he was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1996.  It is estimated that Bob Bell as Bozo the Clown was seen at various times in thirty million TV households not just in the Chicago area but nationwide due to the fact that so many cable companies carried WGN-TV between 1978 and 1984.

The character of Bozo the Clown was purchased in 1960 from original owners to be sold to local TV franchises.  Not that many TV stations specialized in locally produced programming for children but WGN-TV had long made children's shows one of its staples along with movies and sports.

Bob Bell played Bozo on WGN from the fall of 1961, when the new color studio was ready on Bradley Place, to 1984 when he was replaced in the title role by Joey D'Auria. 

Bob Bell was born January 18, 1922 in Flint, Michigan where he grew up.  His father worked for General Motors and he had two brothers.  After high school, Bob went to Arizona where he worked at late Depression era jobs such as a car hop, a lumberjack, and digging ditches.  He appeared as an extra in in the role of a U.S. cavalryman in the film Arizona.   He also helped build a set for the movie Old Tuscon. 

Bob Bell was partly blind in his right eye but memorized the eye chart in order to enlist in the Marines in 1941 at the start of World War II.  He was found out a year later and given a medical discharge but got back into service almost at once with the help of a sympathetic Navy doctor.  He served in the Navy in San Francisco and then in the Phlippines when it was given its independence from the US in 1946.

After his discharge, Bell worked for different radio and TV stations in the midwest and was paired with Wally Phillips on WLW-TV and WLW Radio in Cincinatti, Ohio in 1953.  In 1956, Bob and Wally and producer Don Sandburg all came to WGN TV and radio from Cincinatti.  Wally eventually made his own popular show in WGN Radio while Bob was a general staff announcer on TV.  Bob was in a black and white version of the Bozo show starting in June 1960 but the show went on hiatus in January 1961 until the studios could move from Tribune Tower to Bradley Place on the northwest side.

When Bozo's Circus went on national cable and satellite in 1978, the waiting list for tickets passed the ten year mark. Parents whose children were born in 1979 wrote to WGN hoping to get tickets to the show for a tenth birthday party.  During almost forty years from 1961 to the last show in August 2001, different versions of the Bozo program in different days and time slots still benefitted from one of the best ensemble casts ever assembled for children's television including Ringmasters Ned Locke and later Frazier Thomas (also former Prime Minister to Garfield Goose and one of the hosts of Family Classics movies), Ray Rayner as Oliver O. Oliver, Bob Trendler as Mr. Bob, Don Sandburg as Sandy the Tramp, Roy Brown as Cooky the Cook, Marshall Brodien as Wizzo the Wizard and the second Bozo Joey D'Auria who played the role until 2001.

Bob and his wife Carol Bell raised four children and after Bob retired they moved from Deerfield to Lake San Marcos, California where Bob was president of the Kiwanis Club and raised money for local school programs.  Bob died on December 8, 1997 in California from heart failure at 75.  About four months later in April 1998, Gov. Jim Edgar and Mayor Richard M. Daley both proclaimed Bob Bell Day in the State of Illinois and City of Chicago.  In honor of the event, a few blocks of Addison Street near the WGN studio posted new street signs that say "Bob Bell Way."