Richard Dawson
Richard Dawson (born Colin Lionel Emm; 20 November 1932 – 2 June 2012) was a British-born American actor, comedian, game-show host, and panelist in the United States. Dawson was well known for playing Corporal Peter Newkirk in Hogan's Heroes, as a regular panelist on Match Game (1973–1978), and as the original host of Family Feud (1976–1985, 1994–95).
This article is about the actor, comedian, and game show host. For others with the same name, see Richard Dawson (disambiguation).
Richard Dawson
2 June 2012 (aged 79)
- Actor
- comedian
- game show host
- panelist
1954–1995, 2000
3, including Mark
Early life[edit]
Colin Lionel Emm was born in Gosport, Hampshire, England, on 20 November 1932[1] to Arthur Emm (born 1897) and Josephine Lucy Emm (née Lindsay; born 1903).[2][3] His father drove a removal van and his mother worked in a munitions factory.[4] Dawson and his older brother John Leslie Emm were evacuated as children during World War II to escape the bombing of England's major port cities in the south. In a radio interview with Hogan's Heroes co-star Bob Crane, Dawson recounted how this experience severely limited his school attendance, stating that he attended school regularly for only two years.[5]
At age 14, Dawson ran away from home to join the British Merchant Navy, where he pursued a career in boxing, earning almost $5,000 in shipboard matches.[6] During 1950 and 1951, Dawson made several passages on the RMS Mauretania from Southampton to ports of call, including Nassau, the Bahamas, Havana, and New York City.[7] Following his discharge from the merchant service, Dawson began pursuing a comedy career using the stage name Dickie Dawson; he later changed his alias to Richard Dawson, which he eventually adopted as his legal name.[8]
Career[edit]
Comedy and variety artist in the UK[edit]
Emm began his career in England as a stand-up comedian 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 Television programme focused on "introducing artists and acts new to television".
Emm 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 Do You Do, a BBC Light Entertainment broadcast billed as "a friendly get-together of Commonwealth artists."
In 1958, Emm appeared alongside his future wife, Diana Dors, on BBC TV's A to Z: D, a programme featuring entertainers with names beginning with the letter D. In 1959, Emm made four appearances on BBC TV's Juke Box Jury, three of them alongside Dors, to whom he was by then married.[9]
Actor and comedian in the US[edit]
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 January 1963, Dawson appeared on The Jack Benny Program, season 13, episode 15, as an audience member seated next to Jack, barely recognisable in glasses and false moustache.[12] That same year, Dawson made a guest appearance on The Dick Van Dyke Show (season two, episode 27) playing "Racy" Tracy Rattigan,[13] a lecherous flirt who was the summer replacement host on the Alan Brady Show. He was credited as Dick Dawson.[14]
In 1965, Dawson had a small role at the end of the film King Rat, starring George Segal, playing 1st Recon paratrooper Captain Weaver, sent to liberate allied POWs in a Japanese prison. Dawson had by then moved to Los Angeles. He gained fame in the television show Hogan's Heroes as Cpl. Peter Newkirk from 1965 to 1971.[15] Dawson had a minor role in Universal's Munster, Go Home!. A year later, he released a psychedelic 45-rpm single including the songs "His Children's Parade" and "Apples & Oranges" on Carnation Records. In 1968, Dawson 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 the game show Can You Top This? in 1970 and joined the cast of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In that same year.[16]
After Laugh-In was cancelled in 1973, game-show pioneer Mark Goodson signed Dawson to appear as a regular on Match Game '73, alongside Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, and host Gene Rayburn. Dawson, who had already served a year as panellist for Goodson's revival of I've Got a Secret, proved to be a solid and funny player, and was the frequent choice of contestants to participate in the Head-To-Head Match portion of the "Super-Match" bonus round, in which the contestant and a panellist of the contestant's choice had to match exactly. During Dawson's time on Match Game, he most often occupied the bottom centre seat, only sitting elsewhere (in the top centre seat) during one week early in the show's run.
Personal life and family[edit]
With his first wife, actress Diana Dors, Dawson had two sons, Mark (born in London, 4 February 1960)[26] and Gary (born in Los Angeles, 27 June 1962).[27] The marriage ended with a divorce granted in Los Angeles in April 1967,[28] and Dawson gained custody of both sons. He has four grandchildren.[29] Dawson became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1984.[30]
On retiring, Dawson remained in Beverly Hills, California, where he had lived since 1964. He met his second wife, Gretchen Johnson (born 22 September 1955), when she was a contestant on Family Feud in May 1981; they married in 1991. A daughter, Shannon Nicole Dawson, was born in 1990. Dawson announced the birth and showed a picture of his daughter during the inaugural episode of his second stint as host of Feud in 1994 as he was greeting a contestant who had been a contestant on Match Game when he was a panelist. The episode was featured on the 25th anniversary of Family Feud as number two on the Game Show Network's top 25 Feud moments.[31]
During the 1960s and 1970s, Dawson participated in various movements, including the Selma to Montgomery marches and George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign.[32]
Death[edit]
Dawson died of complications from esophageal cancer at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles on 2 June 2012, aged 79.[1][17][33] He is interred in Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles.[34]
Dawson used to smoke almost four packs of cigarettes per day, and he was seen smoking on some episodes of Match Game, Family Feud, and Hogan's Heroes. His daughter Shannon convinced him to stop smoking by 1994, when he was 61.
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.[35]