[1] He was born in 1869 in Port Dickinson, New York.
He joined a minstrel show and later appeared with Lew Dockstader for a few years.
He next performed in vaudeville then he started the Neil O'Brien Minstrel Company in 1913.
He next teamed up with James J. Corbett, the boxer to tour as a vaudeville comedy act.
He died on January 14, 1954, at Mount Vernon Hospital in Mount Vernon, New York, at age 85.