Rip Taylor
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Charles Elmer "Rip" Taylor, Jr. (born January 13, 1934 in Washington D.C.), is an American actor and comedian known as "The Crying Comic". Known for his high voice, zany hair (which is a toupee), bushy handlebar mustache over a perpetual toothy grin and his heavyset physique, his schtick is to toss handfuls of confetti from a paper bag onto his audience, then laugh hysterically. One of Taylor's classic lines, after getting little to no reaction following one of his jokes, is to stop for a moment and yell, "I don't dance, folks! This is it!"
Though Taylor has taken dramatic roles, he is best identified--even typecast—as a joker, a quick wit and a prop comic. Of his trademark gimmick—conceived quite by accident in 1969 at Merv Griffin's show after tearing up a script on stage and throwing the pieces in a fit of pique—he jested in an interview that "three nuns are tearing it for me 24 hours a day".
Taylor was a frequent celebrity guest panelist on game shows such as Hollywood Squares and The Gong Show, and even hosted a short-lived send-up of beauty pageants called The $1.98 Beauty Show, created by Gong Show producer/host Chuck Barris, in 1978. Taylor appears as a celebrity on the slot-machine version of Match Game. On one episode of Super Password, gameplay went awry after another celebrity guest, Patty Duke, inadvertently gave away the password. Taylor, in a fit of frustration, shouted "That's not fair!" as he pulled off his toupee, resulting in hysteric laughter from all in the studio. In 2006, Taylor returned to game shows as a contestant on the revivial of I've Got a Secret.
Taylor has been doing movies, television, and voice-over for some forty years, though is probably best remembered for his appearance as a celebrity guest at the funeral/roast of a very dull man in the cult comedy classic Amazon Women on the Moon. In 2005, Taylor appeared as himself on an episode of ABC TV's The George Lopez Show as well as in the motion picture Wayne's World 2 (1993). Taylor guest-starred in four episodes of an earlier ABC sitcom featuring Lopez, Life With Bonnie. Taylor has been a frequent co-star with Debbie Reynolds in her live shows in Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe. Taylor also appeared as himself on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace (1998).
Taylor is also an accomplice of the Jackass crew and their friends. In 1995, he performed the intro for the Bloodhound Gang's Use Your Fingers album, and in 2003, he appeared in the final scene of , wielding a pistol that, when fired, released a sign that read "The End." (Taylor's section of the film was originally considerably longer, and ended with him complaining about the heat, and fanning himself with his toupee. This footage was included on the DVD of the film).
Many credit Taylor as the prototype for the stage act of comic Gallagher.
Another fact about Rip Taylor is that he did not learn how to drive a car until he was 44.
Prior to becoming famous, Taylor was a page in the Senate. He was also conscripted into the Army and served in the Korean War.
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