biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1922– )
|
| biography:
| Television comedian, born in Yonkers, New York, USA. He began his career in show business while a teenager, playing saxophone and clarinet for the Shep Fields band. In the Coast Guard during World War 2, he made his stage debut in a service show, Tars and Spars (1945), also appearing in the 1946 film version. Master of pantomine, dialect, and doubletalk, he went on to star in National Broadcasting Company's Your Show of Shows (1950–4), a comedy variety series that is regarded as a high point of early television. For some years his career went into decline and he became an alcoholic, but he later starred in the Broadway musical, Little Me (1962–3), and appeared in occasional Hollywood films and television films in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1982 he published his autobiography, Where Have I Been . |
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