Tom Mullica started his comedic career when he was in the fourth grade. I don’t know why he waited so long; I gave my first magic show when I was in the second.

Unless he spent those two years practicing. I bet he did, the rascal.

I hope you didn’t miss Tom Mullica’s Red Skelton show.

Tom is one of the funniest performers I ever saw do magic. I put ads in the paper advertising "Red Skelton at the Sunrise" (that was the name of the show). Somebody called up to remind us that Red Skelton was dead.

Wanna bet?

A great performer like Skelton might pass from this earth, but his television shows and movies go on forever. Only the on-stage performance was ever lost.

Emilyn Williams invented the modern one-man show, recreating Charles Dickens’ platform appearances; and Hal Holbrook brought Mark Twain back to life.

A new art of the theater emerged, and the latest is Skelton’s longtime friend, Tom Mullica, who brought Clem Cadiddlehopper to the Sunrise, along with the Mean Widdle Kid, Gertrude and Heathcliff, Freddie the Freeloader, and all the others.

When I met Mullica he’d been inveigled to Atlanta, Georgia, and was working for peanuts doing shopping mall shows for another magician. He roomed with a local disk jockey, and they got along like Neil Simon’s Odd Couple. That was almost 30 years ago.

Tom started performing at a local restaurant, running the bar and making the place rock with laughter. Then he opened his own show bar, the Tom-Foolery, and made a hit there. His place was so popular he had to close it down. It was the only way he could accept the offers that poured in.

He went on from there to Las Vegas, and Letterman, and a thousand other places. He lived in Paris for three years while performing at The Crazy Horse.

Tough life, huh?

He’d met Red Skelton in Atlanta, and the two had become friends, and fans.

They wrote back and forth, exchanging material and ideas and all too infrequent visits. In one letter Skelton ruefully commented, "Strange thing about actors. They’re real family but never see each other."

The correspondence and the friendship continued. For the last year of Red’s life, they worked on this one-man show, all the while swapping gags.

I wish I had a letter from Red Skelton saying, "Thanks for the jokes."

Tom has.

When I heard via the Internet that Tom Mullica was looking for small, intimate theaters for his premiere tour, I wanted to bring him here, to the Sunrise.

I thought it would be a great thing to launch this show here, a good thing for the town and for the idea of the Sunrise Theater.

And this past weekend he came, and opening night was right here Friday night. Some people might have come just to see an opening. Some, having seem him on television or at Caesar’s Palace, were there to see what Tom Mullica is up to now.

Most were there to howl with laughter at a limber-legged, red-headed, rubber-faced clown. They came to see him twist his hat and turn himself into a hobo, or a mischievous child, or a pair of seagulls.

They came to visit an old friend they’ve been missing for too long a time.

They all came see Red Skelton, and he was there.

The answer is no, Red Skelton isn’t dead.

He lives in our hearts and our memories, and in the art and fond loyalty of his friend Tom Mullica.

The upper part of the stagehouse where loudspeakers are mounted is sometimes called "the gods." Last weekend, at the Sunrise Theater, a voice from the gods announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. RED SKELTON!"

Thanks to Tom Mullica, he was there.

John Chappell is editor of the online edition of The Pilot.