Lou's Final Days

[tv star collector]

Lou Costello was a sentimental man, who had suffered a tragic life (his son
Butch drowned a few days before his first birthday). In her loving biography,
Lou's on First, his youngest daughter Chris Costello remembers his last
days:

"Not too long before Dad's death, he took me up to the top of Longridge
Terrace, where our new home was being built. It was a clear, beautiful night.
It was gorgeous. Only the framework of the house was up. From where we
stood we could see the entire San Fernando Valley. Dad stood where the
sliding glass doors would later be, rocking back and forth on his heels as was
his tendency. He seemed to be reflecting. After a while he turned to me where I was standing beside him and very softly said, 'You know, someday,
Christy, I'm gonna be up here among the stars.' It was the last time he ever
saw the place and I'm happy he shared that moment with me. The home
wasn't completed until after his death.

"It was the last week in February of 1959; I was eleven. I'd come home from
school ... As I passed my parents' bedroom I saw my father standing between the two bedposts, holding on, and he was dripping wet, as if he had
just got out of the shower and hadn't dried off. It was an odd sight and I
wandered into the bedroom, looking strangely at my father. He looked at me
and sort of hung his head. He whispered, 'Christy, go get your mother.'

"That was followed by a flurry of activity. Mom called Dr. Immerman. Dad was
put to bed by my mother and somebody--Mom or the doctor--called the
ambulance. I remember it took a long time, and it was around seven o'clock
before the ambulance arrived. ...

"There was a basketball game on the television set in the living room, but
nobody was paying any attention to it. As they wheeled my father out of the
house, he motioned to me and then to the television, and in a barely audible
voice said, 'Let me know what the score is, Christy.'

"It was the last time I ever saw my father alive and those were his last words
to me."

[ponytail]

Gee, how sad. I remember seeing a made for tv movie about Abbott and Costello years ago. I remember his young son dying. He was funny up until the end. What a guy.

[Dobson and Kelly]

He made so many people laugh for so many years. We lost him much too soon.

[Cincy Guy]

Many years ago, I read that on the day he died, Lou appeared to be feeling fine. He reportedly said (to a nurse or someone who was there), "I sure would like to have a chocolate malt". Within a short time, he passed away.

[Dobson and Kelly]

[I heard a similar story - Eddie Sherman was there and Lou asked for a strawberry ice cream soda. Eddie asked the nurse if it was all right, and the nurse said that Lou could have anything he wanted. Lou told Eddie he wanted two scoops of ice cream in his soda and after he uttered that, he passed away. Sherman called up gossip columnist Louella Parsons and gave her the exclusive that Lou had died. She knew before Lou's family, a fact that some of them held against Sherman.

[comedyfreak]

Wow I never knew any of this had happened. I only heard about his son.

[Dobson and Kelly]

Originally Posted by comedyfreak

Wow I never knew any of this had happened. I only heard about his son.

To this day nobody knows for sure if Bud visited Lou in the hospital. Many think Bud never knew Lou was sick. It was a shame that Lou died so young, he could have had a second career as a character actor on TV and in the movies.