Rip Taylor, Flamboyant Comic and Host of 'The $1.98 Beauty Show,' Dies at 84

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Hollywood Reporter



Rip Taylor, the exuberant comedian whose zany shtick and over-the-top delivery made him a television and nightclub mainstay for more than six decades, has died. He was 84. Taylor died Sunday in Beverly Hills, publicist Harlan Boll announced.

Taylor became a comedy legend through pure exhilaration. Believing that the more exaggerated the gag, the bigger the laugh, he overemphasized everything, from his shaggy blonde toupee and bushy mustache to the campy props that were the basis of his bits. His jokes were far from cutting edge, but he would deliver them with such shrieking gusto, it was hard not to howl.

The self-described "King of Confetti," Taylor was famous for dousing his audience with buckets of colored paper, and anyone attending a Rip Taylor performance expected to be wearing confetti by the end of it.

As he explained during a 2011 interview with Kliph Nesteroff for the Classic Television Showbiz blog, his signature gag came about purely by accident. "I did props and I was 'The Prop Comedian.' I was dying like hell on Merv Griffin's show. The jokes were dumb, and I tore the 5 by 8 cards, threw them up in the air and it became confetti," he recalled. "I knocked over his desk, walked up the aisle, went to Sardi's and said, 'Well, that's the end of my television career.' I went home that night. Their switchboard had lit up. They said, 'Get the guy that went crazy!' And that is how the confetti started."

Read more: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rip-taylor-dead-flamboyant-comic-host-198-beauty-show-was-84-1196673

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Wow. Didn't realize he was 84. R.I.P.

[George II]

1. Neither did I, I thought he was much older than that. Wasn't he on a lot of game shows decades ago?

[jb5150]

2. I feel bad ...

… I honestly thought he died years ago.

[edbermac]

3. A blast from the past.

Thought he died years ago.

[SaulofTucson]

4. Hard to believe...

...that '$1.98' is 40 years old. One of my favorite shows.
RIP Rip.

[mcar]

5. RIP. A real onslaught of celebrity deaths these past few weeks. nt

[Polybius]

6. I never knew his name, but his I recognize his face right away

RIP.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. I remember he was a fixture on "Hollywood Squares"

[dchill]

8. RIP, Rip.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

9. :

[blaze]

10. Such a nice article. Did you know he was a congressional page?

a little more from the link (if not allowed, let me know)



Charles Elmer Taylor Jr. was born on Jan. 13, 1935, in Washington, D.C. His father was a musician, his mother a waitress. As a teen, he attended the Capitol Page School and served as a congressional page.

"Can you imagine what I do now and what I did then?" Taylor said during a 1990 interview with Skip E. Lowe. "I knew I was a ham in those hallways because you had to wear a black suit and black knickers. And you'd all have to go under the catacombs to get to the Senate office building, the House office building and Supreme Court to get a document for the congressman and the senator. But I went straight through the rotunda with all the tourists. I would say, 'Paging Senator Bilbo,' who was hot at the time. He was the one in the papers. I was so hammy even then. I knew I was going to be in show business someday."