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Dick Shawn

Dick Shawn
Dick Shawn
Born: Dec 01, 1923 in Buffalo, New York
Died: Apr 17, 1987 in San Diego, California
Occupation: Actor,
Active: '60s-'80s
Major Genres: Comedy
Career Highlights: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Love at First Bite, Evil Roy Slade
First Major Screen Credit: The Opposite Sex (1956)
10 Videos for Dick Shawn
Maid to Order (1987) Angel (1984) The Year without a Santa Claus (1974)
Beer (1985) Faerie Tale Theatre: The Emperor's New Clothes (1984) The Producers (1968)
The Check is in the Mail (1985) The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud (1984) It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Water (1985)
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Biography:

Like Sheckey Greene and Guy Marks, Dick Shawn was a nightclub comedian whose talents were highly prized by the members of his profession, but who took quite some time building up a fan following with civilian audiences. Beginning his film career with a peripheral role in 1956's The Opposite Sex, Shawn signed a contract with 20th Century Fox in 1960.

He starred in an {-Arabian Nights} satire, The Wizard of Baghdad (1960), which may have been too inside for fans of that genre. After co-starring with Ernie Kovacs in Wake Me When It's Over (1961), Shawn was generally seen in secondary, plot-motivating comic roles in such films as It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) and What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966).

He was hysterically funny in Mel Brooks' The Producers (1967), playing an erratic hippie actor named L.S.D. who was cast in the musical play Springtime for Hitler as a singing Fuehrer. Outside of The Producers, Shawn was seen to best advantage in his bizarre, stream-of-consciousness nightclub routines.

So quirky and unpredictable were his live performances that, when Dick Shawn died of a heart attack while performing before a college crowd in San Diego, many members of the audience assumed his collapse was part of the act. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide.