Bud Abbott learned how to drive a car for the 1946 film, The Time of Their Lives
Abbott's son said that working on his film was his father's only time driving a vehicle.
In the 1940s, there were two types of new drivers on the road: Teenagers who had just earned their license and Bud Abbott, preparing for a role.
Apparently, in all of his years of entertainment, the comedian never learned how to drive a car, according to Bob Furmanek’s Abbott and Costello in Hollywood. According to Abbott’s son, the actor learned how to drive for his 1946 film, The Time of Their Lives.
“That’s the only time in his life my dad ever drove a car,” Bud Abbott Jr. said. “The studio built him an electric car to practice on. We had it at the house, and he would drive it down Ventura Boulevard - this is before it was a highway - to his restaurant, Abbott’s Backstage. The police would let him go on his way, never bothered him.”
Though he was a riot on screen, Abbott Jr. explained that his father’s real personality was nothing like his boisterous on-screen persona.
“He was a really quiet, gentle person,” Abbott Jr. said of his father during an interview with The Des Moines Register. “That’s why I have so much respect for what he did. I knew at a young age he was a very famous star, but I knew he was so good at what he did because when he was off camera, he was a different person. I was always very proud of him.”
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