Richard Deacon (actor)
| Richard Deacon | |
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| Born | May 14, 1921 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | August 8, 1984 (aged 63)[1] Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1953–1984 |
Richard Deacon (May 14, 1921 – August 8, 1984), born in Philadelphia, was an American television and motion picture actor.
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[edit] Career
The bald and usually bespectacled character actor often portrayed pompous or imperious figures. He made appearances on The Jack Benny Show as a salesman and a barber, and on NBC's Happy as a hotel manager. He had a brief role in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds (1963), and a larger role in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), as a physician in the "book-end" sequences added to the beginning and end of this film after its original previews.
He portrayed the historically infamous Chairman of the Columbia Aircraft Corp, Charles A. Levine, who, in February 1927, refused to sell Charles Lindbergh his company's recently acquired Bellanca monoplane for Lindbergh’s famous trans-atlantic flight unless his company could choose the crew.
Deacon later immortalized the scene in the 1957 release of the Billy Wilder/Jimmy Stewart adaptation of Lindbergh’s Pulitzer Prize winning account of his famous flight, The Spirit of St. Louis.[2]
His best-known roles are Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and Fred Rutherford on Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963), although Deacon played Mr. Baxter in the 1957 "Beaver" pilot episode "It's a Small World".[3] He co-starred as Tallulah Bankhead's butler on a classic episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour called, "The Celebrity Next Door". He played Roger Buell on the second season of TV's The Mothers-in-Law (1967–1969), replacing actor Roger C. Carmel in the role.
In Carousel (1956), the film adaptation of the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein stage musical, Deacon had a bit role as the policeman who admonishes Shirley Jones (Julie) and John Dehner (Mr. Bascombe) about Gordon MacRae (Billy Bigelow) in the famous "bench scene". It was one of the few films in which he did not wear glasses, as were his roles in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), and the 1954 costumer Désirée, where he played Jean Simmons' elder brother, an 18th-century Marseilles silk merchant. Deacon played the role of Morton Stearnes' butler, George Archibald, in The Young Philadelphians (1959), which starred Paul Newman.
Deacon appeared in the sitcoms It's a Great Life, How to Marry a Millionaire, Get Smart; The Addams Family, in which he administers Cousin Itt a battery of psychological tests in the May 1965 episode "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Counselor";[4] and The Munsters episode "Pike's Pique". In 1966, he appeared on Phyllis Diller's short-lived TV sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton (1966).[5]
He also appeared in an episode of the Twilight Zone: "The Brain Center at Whipple's" in 1964.
In 1969, he co-starred on Broadway as Horace Vandergelder in the long-running musical Hello, Dolly!, reuniting him onstage with Diller, who played the musical's zany title character.[5]
[edit] Personal life
In real life, he was a gourmet chef. In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote a series of cookbooks and hosted a Canadian television series on microwave cooking.[1] He would stand behind a desk and say to customers, "I'm standing behind here because in a moment of spontaneity, I sold my pants."
In Boze Hadleigh's Hollywood Gays, he reportedly met with Deacon and asked him, "Do you imagine any segment of the public guesses that Richard Deacon is gay?" Deacon shook his head. "Not even gays. Most would be surprised. Only because what you see on TV, a serious guy in a suit, unsmiling, isn’t how anyone thinks of gay males."[citation needed]
[edit] Death
Deacon died from cardiovascular disease in 1984, aged 63, and his remains were cremated.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Richard Deacon Dead at 62;A Comic Film and TV Actor"The New York Times (NYTimes.com). 11 August 1984. http://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/11/obituaries/richard-deacon-dead-at-62-a-comic-film-and-tv-actor.html?scp=1&sq=richard+deacon+actor&st=nyt. Retrieved 2011-06-22.
- ^ The Spirit of St. Louis (book), 1993 Minnesota Historical Society Press, pp 71-76
- ^ Leave It to Beaver (1957 TV series), episode: "It's a Small World" at IMDb
- ^ The Addams Family TV series, episode: "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Counselor" at IMDb
- ^ a b Diller, Phyllis; Buskin, Richard (2005). Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy. New York: The Penguin Group. p. 211. ISBN 1-58542-396-3.
