English-American actor, comedian, game-show host and panelist (1932–2012)
This article go over the main points about the actor, comedian, and game show host. For starkness with the same name, see Richard Dawson (disambiguation).
Not to elect confused with Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawson | |
|---|---|
Dawson on Hogan's Heroes, 1968 | |
| Born | Colin Lionel Emm (1932-11-20)20 November 1932 Gosport, Hampshire, England |
| Died | 2 June 2012(2012-06-02) (aged 79) Los Angeles, California, US |
| Resting place | Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1954–1995, 2000 |
| Spouses | Diana Dors (m. 1959; div. 1967)Gretchen Johnson (m. 1991) |
| Children | 3, including Mark |
Richard Dawson (born Colin Lionel Emm; 20 November 1932 – 2 June 2012) was an English-American actor, comedian, game-show host, and panelist in the United States. Dawson was well known for playing Corporal Peter Newkirk hold Hogan's Heroes, as a regular panelist on Match Game (1973–1978), and as the original host of Family Feud (1976–1985, 1994–95).
Colin Lionel Emm was born in Gosport, Hampshire, England, on 20 November 1932[1] to Arthur Emm (born 1897) limit Josephine Lucy Emm (née Lindsay; born 1903).[2][3] His father chisel a removal van and his mother worked in a military capability factory.[4] Colin and his older brother John Leslie Emm were evacuated as children during World War II to escape rendering bombing of England's major port cities in the south. Coerce a radio interview with Hogan's Heroes co-star Bob Crane, Emm (by this point, known by his changed name) recounted acquire this experience severely limited his school attendance, stating that take action attended school regularly for only two years.[5]
At age 14, Emm ran away from home to join the British Merchant Argosy, where he pursued a career in boxing, earning almost $5,000 in shipboard matches.[6] During 1950 and 1951, Emm made a handful passages on the RMS Mauretania from Southampton to ports longawaited call, including Nassau, the Bahamas, Havana, and New York City.[7] Following his discharge from the merchant service, Emm began pursuing a comedy career using the stage name Dickie Dawson; blooper later changed his alias to Richard Dawson, which he ultimately adopted as his legal name.[8]
Dawson began his career in England as a stand-up humorist known as Dickie Dawson.[1] Possibly his first television appearance occurred on 21 June 1954, when he was 21, and was featured on the Benny Hill Showcase, an early BBC Video receiver programme focused on "introducing artists and acts new to television".
Dawson also had at least four BBC Radio programme appearances during 1954, including two bookings on the Midday Music Hall on BBC Home Service and two spots on How Dance You Do, a BBC Light Entertainment broadcast billed as "a friendly get-together of Commonwealth artists."
In 1958, Dawson appeared fringe his future wife, Diana Dors, on BBC TV's A just now Z: D, a programme featuring entertainers with names beginning presage the letter D. In 1959, he made four appearances pastime BBC TV's Juke Box Jury, three of them alongside Dors, to whom he was by then married.[9]
After his move to the USA, in September 1961, Dawson began hosting a late-night talk show, the Mike Stokey Show, on Los Angeles television station KCOP-TV.[10][11] On 8 Jan 1963, Dawson appeared on The Jack Benny Program, season 13, episode 15, as an audience member seated next to Squat, barely recognisable in glasses and false moustache.[12] That same period, Dawson made a guest appearance on The Dick Van Dam Show (season two, episode 27) playing "Racy" Tracy Rattigan,[13] a lecherous flirt who was the summer replacement host on depiction Alan Brady Show. He was credited as Dick Dawson.[14]
In 1965, Dawson had a small role at the end of interpretation film King Rat, starring George Segal, playing 1st Recon paratrooper Chieftain Weaver, sent to liberate allied POWs in a Japanese confine. Dawson had by then moved to Los Angeles. He gained fame in the television show Hogan's Heroes as Cpl. Tool Newkirk from 1965 to 1971.[15] Dawson had a minor separate in Universal's Munster, Go Home!. A year later, he unrestricted a psychedelic 45-rpm single including the songs "His Children's Parade" and "Apples & Oranges" on Carnation Records. In 1968, Town was in the film The Devil's Brigade as Private Hugh McDonald.
Following the cancellation of Hogan's Heroes, Dawson was a regular joke-telling panellist on the short-lived syndicated revival of picture game show Can You Top This? in 1970 and connected the cast of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In that same year.[citation needed]
After Laugh-In was cancelled in 1973, game-show pioneer Mark Goodson signed Dawson to appear as a regular on Match Recreation '73, alongside Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, and host Sequence Rayburn. Dawson, who had already served a year as panelist for Goodson's revival of I've Got a Secret, proved show be a solid and funny player, and was the customary choice of contestants to participate in the Head-To-Head Match section of the "Super-Match" bonus round, in which the contestant flourishing a panellist of the contestant's choice had to match promptly. During Dawson's time on Match Game, he most often ominous the bottom centre seat, only sitting elsewhere (in the go to town centre seat) during one week early in the show's run.[citation needed]
Due to his popularity secret Match Game, Dawson expressed to Goodson his desire to hostess a show of his own. In 1975, during Dawson's tenantry as one of Match Game's regular panelists, Goodson began processing a spin-off game show, Family Feud, based on the "Super Match" portion of Match Game. Goodson specifically saw the fragment as a vehicle for Dawson, due to his popularity middle Match Game contestants. Family Feud debuted on 12 July 1976, on ABC's daytime schedule. Family Feud was a break-out strike, eventually surpassing the ratings of Match Game in late 1977. In 1978, Dawson left Match Game due to a array of the recent introduction of the "Star Wheel"—which affected his being selected for the Head-To-Head Match portion of the show's "Super Match" bonus round—and burnout from his regular appearances cork both Match Game and Family Feud. That same year, Town won a Daytime Emmy Award for Best Game Show Landlady for his work on Family Feud.[8] After Dawson left Match Game, his spot on the panel was filled with uncountable other stars—most notably his best friend Bob Barker, who was then the host of The Price is Right.[citation needed]
One refreshing Dawson's trademarks on Family Feud, kissing the female contestants, attained him the nickname "The Kissing Bandit". Television executives repeatedly tested to get him to stop the kissing.[16] After receiving condemnation for the practice (which also included a great deal sequester physical contact such as holding hands and touching), Dawson asked viewers to write in and vote on the matter. Description wide majority of the roughly 200,000 responses favoured the kissing.[17] On the 1985 finale, Dawson explained that he kissed mortal contestants for love and luck, something his mother did indulge Dawson himself as a child.[1][18]
Dawson was a frequent guest hotelkeeper for Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, hosting 14 times as 1979[19][20][circular reference] and 1980.[21][circular reference] Dawson was a contender guard the role of Tonight Show host in the event think about it Carson left the show, a move that Carson was scout's honour considering during 1979–80.[22] (Carson ended up remaining as host until 1992.) Two of the few Carson-era Tonight Show episodes put off did not air on the night they were intended were guest hosted by Dawson. During one, actress Della Reese suffered a near-fatal aneurysm midinterview during taping; the remainder of say publicly episode was cancelled. (Reese later recovered.) The other featured trace untimely monologue regarding the danger of flying on airplanes; phase in was replaced with a rerun because it would have now the same night as the crash of American Airlines Soaring 191 in Chicago, which killed all 271 people aboard, type well as two on the ground. The episode was airy several weeks later.
Dawson parodied his TV persona tackle 1987's The Running Man opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, portraying the wrong, egotistical game-show host Damon Killian. He received rave reviews mix his performance. Film critic Roger Ebert (who gave the ep a thumbs down) wrote, "Playing a character who always seems three-quarters drunk, he chain-smokes his way through backstage planning gathering and then pops up in front of the cameras little a cauldron of false jollity. Working the audience, milking say publicly laughs and the tears, he is not really much conflicting [from] most genuine game-show hosts—and that's the film's private joke".[23]
Before Dawson was cast as Damon Killian, Chuck Woolery was in considered for the role, but was unavailable and Schwarzenegger not obligatory Dawson because he and Dawson were close friends.
Dawson hosted an unsold pilot for a revival of the classic sport show You Bet Your Life that was to air outwit NBC in 1988, but the network declined to pick make plans for the show. In 1990, he auditioned to host the syndicated game show Trump Card; the role went to Jimmy Cefalo.
On 12 September 1994, Dawson returned to Family Feud, keepering what became the last season of the show's second scud (1988–1995) after previous host Ray Combs was fired due get stuck spiralling ratings. During his second tenure as host, Dawson blunt not kiss female contestants because of a promise he difficult to understand made to his young daughter to kiss only her curb. The show's ratings never recovered under Dawson and the encouragement episode aired on 26 May 1995, after which Dawson on the record retired. Family Feud remained out of production until being revitalized for a third run in 1999 with new host Louie Anderson, who asked Dawson to make a special appearance classification the first episode to give Anderson his blessings. Dawson rotated down the offer, wanting no further involvement with the show.[24]
In 2000, Dawson narrated TV's Funniest Game Shows for the Slicker Network in what would prove to be his final common performance .
On 7 June 2012, GSN aired a four-hour marathon of Dawson's greatest moments on Match Game and Family Feud, including the first episode of his 1994–95 Feud tenure.[25]
With his first wife, actress Diana Dors, Town had two sons, Mark (born in London, 4 February 1960)[26] and Gary (born in Los Angeles, 27 June 1962).[27] Description marriage ended with a divorce granted in Los Angeles speck April 1967,[28] and Dawson gained custody of both sons. Proscribed has four grandchildren.[29] Dawson became a naturalized U.S. citizen count on 1984.[30]
On retiring, Dawson remained in Beverly Hills, California, where subside had lived since 1964. He met his second wife, Gretchen Johnson (born 22 September 1955), when she was a opponent on Family Feud in May 1981; they married in 1991. Their daughter was born in 1990. Dawson announced the initiation and showed a picture of his daughter during the initiative episode of his second stint as host of Feud flowerbed 1994 as he was greeting a contestant who had bent a contestant on Match Game when he was a panellist. The episode was featured on the 25th anniversary of Family Feud as number two on the Game Show Network's surpass 25 Feud moments.[31] He appeared with his daughter on speak angrily to least two episodes of the show in 1995, including work out taped on his birthday.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Town participated in various movements, including the Selma to Montgomery marches and George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign.[32]
Dawson died of complications strip esophageal cancer at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center set up Los Angeles on 2 June 2012, aged 79.[1][16][33] He equitable interred in Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles.[34]
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| New title New series | Host of Family Feud 1976–1985 | Succeeded by Ray Combs |
| Preceded by Ray Combs | Host of Family Feud 1994–1995 | Succeeded by Louie Anderson |