Uncle Cyp and Aunt Sap Brasfield

Laurence "Boob" Brasfield Laurence Brasfield was born in Smithville, Mississippi. He later said that his mother Nonnie's humor was a major influence in his becoming a comedian. In 1912, at age 14, he joined the Mighty Haag Circus as a roustabout. The next year he did blackface comedy with a horse-and-wagon show. Later he joined a New Orleans, Louisiana stock company. Soon he was traveling with the Redpath Chautauqua tent circuit, which often featured attorney William Jennings Bryan as a speaker. Early in his career, Brasfield adopted the nickname Boob. For the next ten years, Brasfield performed as an actor and worked as a stage manager in both Broadway productions and the road companies of hit shows. In 1920, he had a part in Miss Lulu Bett. He served as stage manager for Enter Madame, which had a two-year Broadway run. In 1922, he became stage manager for the smash hit Abie’s Irish Rose at the Republic Theatre. Neva Brasfield Neva I. F. Greevi was born in Luther, Michigan. After attending local public schools, she attended Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia, Arkansas for three years. She worked as a cashier for a time before marrying Brasfield in 1919. He was nine years her junior. She became a leading lady with the W. I. Swain tent show. ==Career together==

Beginning in the mid-1920s, the Brasfields were featured players with (Jess) Bisbee's Comedians, a popular touring tent repertory troupe based in Memphis, Tennessee. It was part of Bisbee's Dramatic Shows. Boob played the requisite "Toby" character as a hillbilly. He established a reputation as "King of Tobys" for his quick ad-libbing ability and comic facial contortions. Brasfield was the highest-paid performer of the Bisbee troupe. He also wrote and directed performances, in addition to appearing in most of its plays. Uncle Cyp and Aunt Sap In the mid-1940s, Brasfield adopted the Uncle Cyprus character, shortened to "Cyp," when he began performing on radio programs with his brother Rod. Neva became his frequent stage partner as "Aunt Sap." Rod developed the characters for his routines about fictional residents in his adopted hometown of Hohenwald, Tennessee. Cyp and Sap were portrayed as an older married couple who quibbled over everyday matters, with Cyp often coming off as a henpecked husband. They continued touring the country through the 1940s, doing tent shows and sketch comedy. Boob also wrote Grand Ole Opry skits for Rod and Minnie Pearl, among others. By the early 1950s, the Brasfield couple retired to their ranch called Rancho Pocito in the Rio Grande Valley near Edinburg, Texas. Both Brasfields were designated as Kentucky colonels, an honorary title bestowed by the governor of the state. In 1955, their long-time friend Red Foley convinced them to return to show business on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee, produced in Springfield, Missouri. In January 1958, The Billboard reported that the Brasfield couple and Rod had begun filming a series of 52 fifteen-minute comedy programs for syndicated distribution on television. During the summer of 1958, the couple toured with Bisbee's Comedians in Kentucky and Tennessee. During this time, they flew to Springfield on alternate Saturdays to appear on the Jubilee. On August 29, 1959, Uncle Cyp was a fill-in host on the show. and In October 1959, Boob sustained minor injuries from a backstage fall during a Cotton Bowl performance with Foley and a Jubilee touring unit at the Texas State Fair. After the Jubilee was canceled in 1960, the Brasfields appeared on its spin-off, Five Star Jubilee, in 1961. That summer Boob toured with Foley through 22 states. The couple retired from show business for the final time and returned to Texas. Uncle Cyp was recorded in performance on the 1963 Decca LP record, The Red Foley Show (DL-4341). Deaths Laurence Brasfield died in Raymondville, Texas on September 9, 1966, at age 68 from lung cancer. His widow Neva survived him by more than a decade, dying March 19, 1980 in Raymondville at 91. She was buried next to him in Raymondville Cemetery. ==Notes==