Yuri Vulfovich Givistinsky (1903-84) moved from Czarist Russia to the United States in 1906, where he was renamed George David Givot.
After a period providing comedy on late night radio, Givot moved into vaudeville, where he developed into a dialect comedian, specializing in a Greek character. After extensive stage work, including a couple of months in 1931 working in blackface in Mae West’s The Constant Sinner (miscegenation rules prevented West from casting a genuine black actor), he started making comedy shorts in his Greek persona in 1933.
Givot went on to appear in over thirty feature films, branching out into playing a variety of nationalities, including Russian (Step Lively, Jeeves [1937]), English (Hollywood Cavalcade [1939]), Mexican (Fiesta [1941]), French (April in Paris [1953]) and Italian (Three Sailors and a Girl [1953]).
In 1953, Givot provided the voice for Tony, the Italian restaurant owner who provides the spaghetti in Disney’s The Lady and the Tramp.
George Givot appeared in two Metro musicals: Hollywood Party (disguised as Grand Royal Duke Spiros Dimitros Nikolaus Forfoltu-Varenikos) and Du Barry Was a Lady (as the County de Roquefort in the dream sequence).
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