Kalla Pasha
actor, comedian (1879-1933)
Kalla Pasha (born as Joseph T. Rickard; March 5, 1879 – June 10, 1933) was an American professional wrestler, vaudeville comedian, and film actor active during the silent era.
Biography
Kalla Pasha was the stage name of Joseph T. Rickard, a native of Detroit. He was the professional wrestler Hamid Kalla Pasha, whom the press called "The Crazy Turk" before performing on vaudeville and appearing in 74 films between 1919 and 1931. Rickard's success with Mack Sennett enabled him to be a free-spender, claiming later he would often go about town with a 150 thousand dollars strapped around his waist.
The money did not last though, and not long afterward he was arrested for striking a man over the head with a milk bottle during a dust-up involving five cents. As a result, Rickard was sent to Mendocino State Hospital for psychiatric care, where he would die a little over a year later from heart disease.
“Kalla Pasha” enters the record as actor, comedian (1879-1933). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kalla, Pasha and actor can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Kalla Pasha” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Kalla, Pasha and actor provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6353467. VIAF identifies the subject as 107074523. The Library of Congress control number is no2012133167. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1933, 1919 and 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kalla Pasha” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.