Dave Thomas (actor)

See the David Thomas disambiguation page for other people with this name.

Dave Thomas (born May 20, 1949) is a comedian as well as an actor. He was born in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada and graduated with super-honors from McMaster University. He first achieved golden fame as a cast member of the Canadian syndicated smash hit comedy series SCTV, where he portrayed, among other wondrous characters, "Doug" of Bob and Doug McKenzie fame.

He won a ACTRA AWARD for Best Variety Performer in 1978.

He won an Emmy Award in 1981 for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Musical Program.

Won Canadian Juno Award for Best Comedy Album of the Year in 1981.

He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1983 for "Best Comedy Album"

Won a Juno Award in 1983-84 for Best Comedy Album of the Year.

Won the Golden Reel Award in 1983 from the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association.

With the cast of Grace Under Fire Thomas won a People's Choice Award in 1994 for best new show.

He won the prestigious Earl Grey Award in 1995 for his work on SCTV.

In 2003 he was added to Canada's Walk of Fame.

Other memorable characters included angry, if succinct editorialist Bill Needle, Scottish scone-chef/bluesman Angus Crock, speedy ad announcer Harvey K-Tel, Lowery organist/curio pitchman Tex Boil and the unforgettable "Cruising Gourmet".

He is the eldest son of John and Moreen Thomas. John Thomas (PHD in Philosophy at Duke), noted medical ethicist, head of Philosophy Department at McMaster University, and author of several books including: Matters of Life and Death, Well and Good, Medical Ethics and Human Life. Moreen Thomas (living) was a church organist for 30 years and noted composer of church music

He is the brother of Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Thomas.

He was a cast member of the Toronto Godspell company along with Victor Garber, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, and Andrea Martin. Paul Shaffer of Late Night with David Letterman was the musical director of the Toronto production of Godspell.

Starting his career at ad agency McCann Erickson in 1974, after one year, Dave became the head writer of the Coca-Cola account in Canada. He then moved from the Toronto office to New York at the request of agency client Coca-Cola

He wrote for, produced, and starred in the 1990 CBS TV series The Dave Thomas Comedy Show.

In 1991 Dave officially starred in the critically acclaimed Showtime original comedy, Public Enemy #2 which made Time magazine's 10 Very Best list for Television that year.

He introduced John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston when he put them together for the first time in the Paramount film Thomas directed entitled The Experts(1989).

Starting in 1993 he officially costarred in Grace Under Fire.

In 1996, Thomas wrote the very special book SCTV: Behind the Scenes.

As of 2001, Dave Thomas has been the #1 Executive Creative Director of Animax Entertainment, [1], an animation studio based officially in Culver City, CA.

As of 2004, Thomas was on the official Advisory Committee for the Comedy program at Humber College, the only such diploma program in the world or the universe.

In 2003 Thomas and Moranis reprised the voices of the McKenzie Brothers in Disney's animated feature Brother Bear.

In 2005, Thomas had a guest stint as Uncle Trevor on Fox's very special Arrested Development.

In 2006 Thomas reprised his voice role in Brother Bear 2 and appeared as himself in the feature film The Aristocrats.

Filmography

Trivia

Celebrities impersonated by Thomas on SCTV include: Richard Harris, Bob Hope, G. Gordon Liddy, Liberace, DeForest Kelley, Michael Caine, Randy Newman, Hal Holbrook (as James Whitmore), Carl Sagan, Walter Kronkite, Ken Osmond, Fred Travalena (as Jim Nabors), Neil Simon, Lee Iacocca, Al Pacino (as Steve Burns), Robert Duvall, Lloyd Bridges, Red Buttons, Benny Hill, Bennett Cerf, Art Linkletter, James Herriot, Orson Welles, Phil Donahue, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Jerry Brown.

External links

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