Today in San Francisco History - "Kolb and Dill"

Clarence was tall and skinny, Max short and stout -- if you're thinking Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy, you're on the right track. Wearing their trademark stovepipe hats and puffing cigars, the two mixed dopey faux-Teutonic accents with rowdy, physical, prat-falling slapstick. San Francisco was crazy for vaudeville, had been more or less since birth -- remember the Bella Union? -- and these two clowns hit the local variety circuit right in the funny-bone.

As attendance boomed, the stage show grew to include musical comedy and (of course) a cast of showgirls, but the "Teutonic Twins" probably reached the pinnacle of their Bay Area popularity in the weeks following the great Earthquake and Fire of 1906. In a tent erected in the midst of still smoking Market Street wreckage, Kolb and Dill did their damndest to cheer up the whole town.

But backstage, things were far from cheerful -- the two old friends had had a falling out. For some years the two hadn't exchanged a single word with each other -- except onstage.

Finally, even the money wasn't enough to keep them together. Kolb took Dill to court, and in November of 1910, the judge ordered the partnership dissolved, and the team's mutual effects put up for auction.

Trunks of costumes, false beards, padding, even a chorus girl's outfit or two went to the highest bidder, and a bit of doggerel commemorating their divorce appeared in the Oakland Tribune:

"Kolb and Dill went up the hill
To corner all the laughter
But Kolb fell down and broke his crown
And was peevish ever after."