Richard Dawson, wisecracking entertainer in the British schemers in the 1960 sitcom "Hogan's Heroes" and a decade later started kissing thousands of women contestants as the host of the game "Family Feud" show died. He was 79.
Dawson, also known as the Cockney TV fans who POW Cpl. Peter Newkirk on "Hogan's Heroes," died Saturday night from complications associated with esophageal cancer at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Gary said.
Game show, which first ran 1976-1985, pitted family try to guess the most popular responses to poll questions like "What do people give up when they go on a diet? "
He made his warm, soaring delivery of the phrase "Survey says ..." a national slogan for the viewers.
Dawson won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1978 as the best game show host. Tom flakes of The Washington Post called it "a friend to talk the fastest, lightest and most beguilingly pot since the late great Groucho jokes and parried in the 'Be Your Life." Show was so popular it was released the same day and night syndicated version.
Arrogant, pompous style (and a British accent) makes it different from other TV quizmasters. He is known for her kiss each participant, and the time to show bowed in 1985, executive producer Howard Felsher estimated that Dawson had been kissed "somewhere around 20,000."
"I kiss them for luck and love, that's all," Dawson said at the time.
He kissed one of them was Gretchen Johnson, the young participants appeared to members of his family in 1981. After a decade together, he and Dawson were married in 1991. They had one daughter, Shannon.
The Dawson reprized the character in the game shows a much better condition at the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie "The Running Man," plays host to turn off a TV show set in a totalitarian future in which inmates try to escape as their executioners stalk them. "Saturday Night Live" has been mocked in the 1970s, with Bill Murray from describing him as a leering and nasty, even a slap participants (John Belushi) to be too fresh.
British-born actor who gained fame as a fast-talking Newkirk on "Hogan's Heroes," CBS comedy starring Bob Crane and laughs are mined from a Nazi POW camp the prisoners to mislead their captors and run the place itself.
Although its likely premise, the show made a top 10 ranking in his first season, 1965-1966, and ran until 1971.
"We run six years," Dawson once quipped, "one year longer than Hitler." Both "Hogan's Heroes" and "Family Feud" has a second life in the past year, the former and the recent DVD reissues on GSN , formerly known as Game Show Network.
In Dawson the last "Family Feud" in 1985, honored the studio audience with standing ovations, and he replied: "Please sit down I have to do at least 30 minutes of fun and laughter and you make me want to cry .. "
"I have the most incredible luck in my career," he told the audience, adding, "I never dreamed I would have a job that many people can handle me and I can touch them" That triggered an unexpected laugh. .
Manufacturers bring "The New Family Feud," starring comedian Ray Combs, in 1988. Six years later, Combs Dawson replaced the power, but it only lasted one season. Steve Harvey is the current host.
Dawson was born in 1932 Colin Lionel Emm in Gosport, England. When he was 14 he joined the Merchant Marines, serving three years.
He first entered show business as a taxi-up comedian, playing clubs in the West End of London at the legendary Stork Room. It was there, in the late 1950s, he met Diana DORS blond bomb, the film star who became known as the British answer to Marilyn Monroe. They married in 1959 and divorced in late 1960.
Dawson landed the role of humor in the U.S. and various events in the early 1960s, including "Steve Allen Show" and after his performance as a military prisoner in "The Dick Van Dyke Show." 1965 film "King Rat" which led to its cast are in the "Hogan Heroes", which really makes it a star with American audiences. After that, he was a regular on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh" and "The New Dick Van Dyke Show."
In the meantime, he became a frequent participant in a celebrity game show, which led to a job hosting on the same day and prime-time version of "The Match Game."
While hosting "The Match Game," he began "Family Feud", in which fame grew to the level that he is mentioned as a front-runner for winning the "Tonight Show" host chair to succeed Johnny Carson, who at that time considered retirement . Although Carson stayed put, Dawson appeared as guest host.
Dawson is survived by his widow, Gretchen, their daughter Shannon, two sons, Mark and Gary, from his first marriage, and four grandchildren.