- published: 05 Oct 2009
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Charles Elmer "Rip" Taylor, Jr. (born January 13, 1934) is an American actor and comedian.
Taylor was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Elizabeth, a waitress, and Charles Elmer Taylor, Sr., a musician. As a young man, Taylor served in the Korean War while in the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
After serving a stint in the Army, Taylor appeared in two episodes of The Monkees television series in 1968. He continued to work as a voice performer in the 1970s NBC cartoon series Here Comes the Grump (as the title character) and in the second Addams Family cartoon series (as Uncle Fester).
Throughout the 1970s Rip Taylor was a frequent celebrity guest panelist on game shows such as Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth, and The Gong Show, and substituted for Charles Nelson Reilly on The Match Game. He became a regular on Sid & Marty Krofft's Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, playing Sheldon, a sea-genie who lived in a conch shell. In addition, Taylor was also a regular on The Brady Bunch Hour, playing a role of neighbor / performer Jack Merrill. He also 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 appeared as a celebrity on the slot-machine version of Match Game. On one episode of Super Password in 1988, gameplay went awry after another celebrity guest, Patty Duke, inadvertently gave away the password and host Bert Convy lost control of the show. Taylor reacted to the craziness first by throwing a stool, and then ripping off his toupee, something he claimed to have never done on the air before.
David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. Letterman recently surpassed friend and mentor Johnny Carson for having the longest late-night hosting career in the United States of America.
Letterman is also a television and film producer. His company Worldwide Pants produces his show as well as its network follow-up The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Worldwide Pants has also produced several prime-time comedies, the most successful of which was Everybody Loves Raymond, currently in syndication.
In 1996, David Letterman was ranked #45 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.
Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Harry Joseph Letterman (April 1915 – February 1973), was a florist of British descent; his mother Dorothy Letterman (née Hofert, now Dorothy Mengering), a Presbyterian church secretary of German descent, is an occasional figure on the show, usually at holidays and birthdays.
Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. (born February 6, 1931), is an American actor of stage, screen and television.
Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated for six Emmy Awards, winning in 1996. Torn also won an American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Male in a Series, and two CableACE Awards for his work on the show, and was nominated for a Satellite Award in 1997 as well.
Torn was born Elmore Rual Torn, Jr. in Temple, Texas, the son of Thelma Mary (née Spacek) and Elmore Rual Torn, an agriculturalist and economist. Being given the name "Rip" is a family tradition of men in the Torn family for several generations. It was given to him by his father, who was also called Rip; although as a young child and teenager he was referred to as "Skippy". He was a member of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets and is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.