Rip Taylor 1935-2019
Charles Elmer "Rip" Taylor Jr. (January 13, 1935 – October 6, 2019) was an American actor and comedian, known for his exuberance and flamboyant personality, including his wild moustache, toupee, and his habit of showering himself (and others) with confetti.
Born in Washington, D.C., Taylor's career in show business began after he joined the U.S. Army, where he started performing stand-up in clubs and restaurants abroad. Although a lot of his material were jokes stolen from acts he saw in USO shows, his signature piece would be to pretend to cry as he begged the audience to laugh. From there, he was able to land a spot on The Ed Sullivan Show, making close to 20 appearances. According to Taylor, Sullivan would forget his name but used to say "Get me the crying comedian. In addition to the Ed Sullivan Show, Taylor appeared on The Jackie Gleason Show in several guest appearances during the 1963–64 season as "the crying comedian." He appeared in two 1968 episodes of The Monkees as well as having a cameo in the 1969 special 33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee. He continued to work as a voice performer in the 1970s cartoon series Here Comes the Grump (as the title character) and in the second The Addams Family cartoon series (as Uncle Fester). Throughout the 1970s, Taylor was a frequent celebrity guest panelist on TV 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 and Marty Krofft's Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, playing Sheldon, a sea-genie who lived in a conch shell. Taylor was an accomplice of the Jackass crew, and in 2002, he appeared in the final scene of Jackass: The Movie. He did the same thing at the ending of Jackass Number Two and Jackass 3D. Taylor made occasional appearances in movies, usually in broad comedies like The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977) and the R-rated Deep Throat parody Chatterbox (1977). Taylor's first big live show was in 1966, when he went on a tour with Judy Garland and Eleanor Powell in Las Vegas. In 1981, Taylor appeared on Broadway when he replaced Mickey Rooney in the burlesque-themed musical comedy Sugar Babies. In 2010, he appeared in the one-man show It Ain't All Confetti in North Hollywood, where he shared personal stories about his life and career.
Taylor passed away on October 6, 2019, in Beverly Hills, California at the age of 84.