1886–1966 · American comedian and actor, “The Perfect Fool”
Born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia, Ed Wynn went into vaudeville in 1903, starred in the Ziegfeld Follies from 1914, and built the giggling, silly-hatted “Perfect Fool” persona that carried him through Broadway, a pioneering 1930s radio show and, much later, Disney films including Mary Poppins. Alongside the stage work he wrote a syndicated newspaper joke column, and it is there — on 13 September 1925 — that the Grant’s tomb question makes its earliest documented appearance. Quote Investigator is careful to add that Wynn’s column was a magpie’s nest of older gags, so being first into print is not the same as having invented it.