Fred Russell (ventriloquist)

Thomas Frederick Parnell OBE (29 September 1862 – 14 October 1957), known professionally as Fred Russell, was an English ventriloquist. He is known as "The Father of Modern Ventriloquism" because in the 1890s he used only one dummy on stage creating a fast moving comedy team rather than a multi-figure act which, at the time, was the accepted format for a ventriloquial presentation.