Victor Oliver von Samek (8 July 1898 – 15 August 1964) was an Austrian-born British musician, entertainer, comedian and actor, most popular between the 1920s and 1950s. Early life and musical career He was born in Vienna into a Jewish family, the son of Baron Viktor von Samek. He played tennis, football and hockey as a youth and became junior tennis champion of Austria in 1914. He studied medicine at Vienna University but abandoned it for his first love, music. He had been acclaimed as a child prodigy on the violin, and for a time studied under Mahler. During the First World War he served in the Austrian cavalry as adjutant to Prince René of Bourbon-Parma, and at the end of the war escaped to France on a forged passport. After the war he briefly worked as a banker and for a textile manufacturer, and performed as a drummer in a jazz band in Rouen and Le Havre. He travelled to the United States at the end of 1922, and played in vaudeville shows as a pianist and occasional vocalist. He joined a jazz group, The Nine Nights of Jazz, in 1923, and the following year formed a double act with violinist Margaret Crangle. After their act broke up, in 1927 he was appointed as conductor and compere of a travelling radio show in the U.S., with a portable transmitter. As a comedian and musician In 1928, he reunited with Crangle. He discovered his gift for comedy by chance when he apologised to his audience after falling from a piano stool and found that his apologies "drew more laughs than did his accident". A new career as a comedian took him all over the United States. He reached the Palace Theatre, New York, then regarded as the pinnacle of the American vaudeville circuit, in 1929. Returning to England to perform with Crangle, he played the London Palladium two years later, and started to establish his reputation in Britain. With his deferential, modest humour, he became very popular, both in Britain and America, as a solo act, and gained a reputation as "a sophisticated if rather risqué cabaret artiste". He played the violin deliberately badly in his shows. By 1935, he was topping the bill at the London Palladium, and shared the record (with Max Miller) for appearances at the Holborn Empire. He was principal comedian in C. B. Cochran's revue