Tim Conway

Tim Conway
Tim Conway, 2007
Born	Thomas Daniel Conway December 15, 1933 (1933-12-15) Willoughby, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, writer, director, comedian
Years active	1956–present
Spouse	Mary Anne Dalton (1961–1978) Charlene Fusco (1984–present)
Website
http://www.timconway.com/

Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway (born December 15, 1933) is an Emmy award-winning American comedian and actor, who has worked in sitcoms, sketch comedy, and film. Conway is best known for his role in the popular 1960s WWII sitcom McHale's Navy as the inept Ensign Charles Parker, second in command to Lt. Commander Quinton McHale (Ernest Borgnine), and for co-starring alongside Carol Burnett on The Carol Burnett Show.

Early life

Conway was born in Willoughby, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, to an Irish father and Romanian mother, and grew up in nearby Chagrin Falls. He attended Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, majoring in speech and radio, and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. After graduating, he joined the Army, and thereafter took a job at a Cleveland radio station, at first answering mail and later as a writer in the promotional department. Conway changed his first name to "Tim" to avoid confusion with actor Tom Conway.

Career

Ghoulardi

Conway moved back to Cleveland to work with Ernie Anderson on KYW-TV, an NBC affiliate, in 1958 and 1959 and later, from 1960 to 1962, on WJW TV, (then the CBS affiliate) on the weekday morning film (under the Ernie's Place banner) where he also wrote material for the comedic skits shown in between film intermissions. Conway recorded a comedy album with Anderson.

However, WJW dismissed Conway, in part because he (and Anderson) misled station management into thinking he was a director. Because of this move, which deprived Anderson of his co-host and comic foil, the station asked Anderson if he could host a B-grade (and lower) horror film show on Friday nights instead. Conway would continue to make many appearances alongside Anderson's alter ego Ghoulardi, in addition to "Big Chuck" Schodowski, a station engineer who Anderson got to assume much of Conway's sidekick status (and who would ultimately succeed Anderson as co-host of the horror film program).

After he became famous, Conway would resurface periodically on Cleveland television on the Hoolihan and Big Chuck and Big Chuck and Lil' John shows on WJW-TV in guest spots, and occasional skits. Conway has since made regular guest appearances at numerous "Ghoulardifest" functions held by WJW over the years, along with former Cleveland TV personality Bob "Hoolihan" Wells, in tribute to Anderson, who died in 1997.

The Steve Allen Show

Comedic actress Rose Marie visited WJW in 1961, as part of CBS's promotional practice of sending their major show stars directly to local affiliates: in this case, it was for The Dick Van Dyke Show. She viewed film of some of Anderson and Conway's skits and proceeded to take Conway under her wing. Following his departure from WJW, Conway moved to New York City, where he auditioned for, and gained a spot on, ABC's The Steve Allen Show as a regular player. Conway (who by this point had officially changed his first name to Tim) continued on the show for two seasons.

McHale's Navy

Conway gained a national following from his role as the bumbling, naive Ensign Charles Parker, Executive Officer of the PT-73, in the 1960s sitcom McHale's Navy, alongside Ernest Borgnine and Joe Flynn.

Afterwards, he starred in a string of short-lived TV series, starting with 1967's Rango which starred Conway as an incompetent Texas Ranger.

Turn-On

Conway was part of one of the most infamous network TV flops ever: Turn-On, a countercultural sketch comedy show on ABC derided as a ripoff of NBC's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Even though he was only listed as a guest star on the pilot, which ABC broadcast on February 5, 1969, it was the only episode that ever aired.

Turn-On received such negative reaction that several ABC affiliates. TV station WEWS, in Conway's hometown Cleveland, refused to return to the program after the first commercial break, and WEWS management sent an angrily worded telegram to the network's headquarters. Many West Coast affiliates received advanced warning and refused to air it. Conway remarked that the show's premiere party he attended also marked the program's cancellation, but ABC did not officially cancel the program for several days.

The Tim Conway Show

Conway and Flynn in The Tim Conway Show, 1970.

In the 1970s, The Tim Conway Show paired Tim with Joe Flynn of McHale's Navy in a sitcom as owners-pilots of a one-plane (a Beechcraft 18) airline operated by the pair. Having "nowhere to run", this pressurized situation was ideal for the fast repartee of the lead actors. Tim got his own hour-long variety show, The Tim Conway Razzle Dazzle Hour, which, as his other series had, folded quickly. Typical of his self-effacing humor, he ordered his car's license plate to reflect the short duration of a Conway TV series: "13 WEEKS."^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in 1975 Conway was often paired with Don Knotts in family films from Disney, including The Apple Dumpling Gang and its 1979 sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. They also starred in two independent films, a boxing comedy called The Prize Fighter in 1979, and a 1980 mystery comedy film called The Private Eyes. In 1983, he starred in another TV show, Ace Crawford, Private Eye, a parody of detective series; it only lasted five episodes.

The Carol Burnett Show

Conway then became a regular on The Carol Burnett Show. Conway's work on the show earned him five Emmy Awards. Two of Conway's memorable characters on the Burnett Show were:

• "The Old Man," whose shaggy white hair, slow speech, and shuffling gait ran counter to the much needed energy levels of the various occupations he was usually found in. His comic inability to get said jobs done — usually with slapstick results to himself, and with many an ad-lib — would both frustrate and 'break up' his fellow sketch performers.
• "Mr. Tudball," a Swedish-American businessman whose intentions of running a 'ship-shape' office were usually sunk by the bored indifference of his secretary, "Mrs. Wiggins" (Burnett). Conway used a stereotypical Swedish accent (especially when frustrated); for example, his attempts to pronounce his secretary's name came out as "Mrs. Ah-huh-wiggins". He would also use this accent for other characters, such as an inept dentist.

Conway could also get results with no dialogue, as in a sketch in which he played a tired businessman seeking restful sleep in his hotel — and pestered by a housefly, created only by a sound effect and Conway's gazing after it. After much struggle, he manages to get the fly out of the room through the window; after returning to bed, he hears a persistent knock on his door, gets up to answer it, and opens the door, letting the fly (who was doing the knocking) back in.

Another well-remembered skit, also without a word from Conway, featured him playing Simba, a lion raised by humans then released to the wild (based on the lioness Elsa in the film Born Free). Conway, told of the upcoming eviction from the comfortable home, caused Burnett and Korman to break up with an interminable process of packing to leave.

A prime example of his ability to make his co-stars laugh uncontrollably involved Lyle Waggoner as a captured American airman, with Conway as a stereotypical blond-haired Gestapo agent charged with his interrogation. Stating that "the Fuhrer" had taken particular interest, Conway produces a small Hitler hand puppet. With Conway providing a falsetto voice, the puppet suggests that singing might relax Waggoner's character to the point he is willing to talk. In a long, drawn-out fashion, the Hitler puppet sings "I've Been Working on the Railroad", and with each passing verse, Waggoner loses more of his composure, finally laughing hysterically when puppet-Hitler screeches, "FEE-FI-Fiddely-I-O!"

Dorf

Conway's more recent work includes a series of satirical how-to videos in which he plays a diminutive, dark-haired Scandinavian known as Dorf (a variation on "dwarf"), reprising his goofy Mr. Tudball accent. The Dorf character first appeared in the 1987 film Dorf on Golf and has since appeared in eight other films on a variety of sports from baseball to auto racing. Dorf on Golf was remastered for DVD in 2007. In 2010, all of the Dorf films were remastered on a DVD Collection featuring all eight films, a behind the scenes with Dorf, and a commentary track by Tim Conway on "The Legend of the Paddle: The Oldie Hollis Story".

Since 2009 Tim Conway's Dorf character has started "helping" Santa Claus on the website iSpotSanta, created by comedy filmmaker Pasquale Murena and Anything Goes Productions. Each year Dorf has three sketches; in 2009 he tried to give Santa his Christmas list, failing and accidentally hitting Santa with a golf ball. Then in 2010 he tried to give all of the world's letters to Santa directly using jet rockets to fly to his sleigh, cannon balls and more.

Other television

Conway as an angel with Robert Morse on That's Life, 1968.

Conway has also made many guest appearances and other roles in television.

He guest-starred in ABC's Coach, for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series playing Kenny Montague in the 1996 episode "The Gardener". Conway won another Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Bucky Bright in the 30 Rock episode "Subway Hero", which initially aired on April 17, 2008.

His other TV roles include:

• Batman: The Brave and the Bold, where in one episode he voiced the Weeper, a washed up former supervillain idolized by the Joker.
• Channing, a drama about college life in the early 1960s.
• Diagnosis: Murder, in 1997. Tim Conway and Harvey Korman appeared in a episode called "Comedy is Murder", playing former comedy partners called Tim Conrad and Harvey Huckaby. A clip of the well-known dentist sketch from The Carol Burnett Show was used to illustrate "Huckaby and Conrad"s former television partnership.
• Garfield's Fun Fest, where Conway voiced Freddy Frog and other characters.
• Hermie and Friends, Max Lucado's animated cartoon, where he provides the voice of the title character in all eight episodes so far.
• Hot in Cleveland. On July 28, 2010, Conway guest-starred in an episode of the TV Land sitcom.
• Married... with Children in several apparances portraying Ephraim Wanker, the hillbilly father of Peg Bundy.
• The New Scooby Doo Movies, where Conway appeared in animated form in a guest shot in the October 6, 1973 episode, "The Spirited Spooked Sports Show".
• On The Spot. In 2003, he returned to television on the short-lived WB Network comedy.
• SpongeBob SquarePants, where Tim voices the character "Barnacle Boy" in a recurring role on the Nickelodeon cartoon sitcom; in this role, he is once again paired up as the sidekick to his old McHale's Navy co-star, Ernest Borgnine (who voices Mermaid Man, the "mentor" of Barnacle Boy).
• Wizards of Waverly Place, playing Cragmont in the episode Justin's Back In.
• Yes Dear. Conway has guest starred occasionally on the CBS sitcom, playing Tom Warner, the father of Anthony Clark's stuffy character, Greg, with Conway's old Carol Burnett Show co-star Vicki Lawrence playing his wife, Greg's overbearing mother.

He has lent his voice to other TV shows including The Simpsons, Disney spin-off Hercules, The Wild Thornberrys, Cybill, What's New, Scooby-Doo?, The Proud Family, Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy!, Caillou and What's with Andy?. He also narrated The Secret Shortcut in Reading Rainbow and hosted The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration.

During The Biography Channel's biography of Conway, Borgnine referred to Conway as "a credit to his profession" and Burnett said words to the effect that Conway's talent for comedy was only outstripped by his genuine kindness and good nature.^{[citation needed]}

On his 75th birthday, Conway was interviewed as a guest on The Bonnie Hunt Show and given a surprise cake by Bob Newhart.

Other film and video

He starred in Disney films such as 'The World's Greatest Athlete (1973), The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and Gus. He starred in the 1977 comedy film The Billion Dollar Hobo.

Conway and Harvey Korman created a Collector's Edition DVD of new comedy sketches, titled Together Again; sold through Conway's official website.

From 2003 through the present, Conway teamed up with good friend Don Knotts again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which would continue until Knotts' death in 2006. Conway continues to do the series.

Personal life

Conway has been married twice. He was married to Mary Anne Dalton from 1961 until 1978. They had six children together. He has been married to Charlene Fusco since May 18, 1984. Among Tim Conway's children is KFI Los Angeles radio host Tim Conway, Jr.

Charitable endeavors

On June 6, 7 and 8, 2010, Conway came back to his hometown of Chagrin Falls to put on a fund-raising performance at the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre to help kick off their capital campaign.

He is a spokesperson for the United Leukodystrophy Foundation.

A fan of thoroughbred horse racing, and an occasional racehorse owner, Conway is a co-founder and vice-president, of the Board of Directors of the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund.

Other honors

On February 1, 2010, Conway was awarded the PTC Integrity in Entertainment Award, which says that "recognizes those individuals and corporations who have demonstrated a longstanding commitment to creating, distributing and sponsoring quality entertainment that is free from graphic and gratuitous sex, violence and profanity."

External links

• Official website
• Tim Conway at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview, Archive of American Television, 20 April 2004 on Google Video
• Disney Legends profile
• Two takes on "The Elephant Story"
• Q&A with Tim Conway