I'm guessing that Crawford is not clearly remembered these days, as the recently-composed caption for the photo identifies him as a comedian. Well, he did play a straight-man role, a worthy foil for Judy Holliday, in George Cukor's 1950 movie Born Yesterday, but I can't recall ever seeing him in a comedy role himself. The photo makes me wonder, though. George Burns was usually the straight-man in his routines with Gracie Allen, so maybe Crawford did deliver the comic lines on this particular occasion. I now wish that I could have attended that particular Friar's Frolics. The Friar's Club events were usually... well, fairly dirty, even in the staid 1950s. The photo suggests that this event was no exception. It also suggests that Crawford might have possessed untapped comic talents. I'll always be wondering now.
The collection also contains this nice night photo of a diesel powered freight train rolling down the traffic lane on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood in 1970. The tracks are gone now, as are the Paris Theatre and P.J.'s nightclub. That scene I actually got to see, though, several times. But from now on, I'm going to picture the train's engineer being Broderick Crawford in his Friar's Frolics outfit.