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Les Dawson
Leslie Dawson (2 February 1931 – 10 June 1993) was an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and pianist. He was known for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona, musical routines, and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife.
Les Dawson was born in Collyhurst, Manchester, on 2 February 1931, the only child of bricklayer Leslie Dawson (2 August 1905 – 10 April 1970) and Julia Nolan (14 January 1908 – 29 September 1957), who was of Irish descent. His first job was in the parcels department of the Manchester Co-op. He worked briefly as a journalist on the Bury Times.
Early in life, Dawson wrote poetry and kept it secret. It was not expected that someone of his working class background would have literary ambitions. In a BBC Television documentary, he spoke of his love for canonical figures in English literature, in particular the 19th-century essayist Charles Lamb, whose florid style influenced Dawson's. As a young man he appeared with The Nelson Players in Nelson, Lancashire as Mr Justice Wainwright and Carter, chief clerk to Sir Wilfrid Robarts QC in Agatha Christie's play Witness for the Prosecution in December 1956.
Dawson wrote in his autobiography that he had a job as a pianist in a Parisian brothel. Making a living as a pianist evolved into comedy when he got laughs from deliberately bad piano-playing by playing "all the wrong notes in exactly the right order" and complaining to the audience. He first rose to public prominence on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and worked as a comic on British television for the rest of his life.
Television series in which he appeared included the panel game Jokers Wild (1969–73) hosted by Barry Cryer, Sez Les (1969–76) and Dawson's Weekly (1975), all for Yorkshire Television. After joining the BBC, his TV projects were The Dawson Watch (1979–80), written by Andy Hamilton and Terry Ravenscroft, The Les Dawson Show (1978–89), written by Terry Ravenscroft, and the quiz show Blankety Blank, which he presented from 1984 until its cancellation in 1990. Dawson starred in Listen to Les on BBC Radio 2 in the 1970s and 1980s.
He made many appearances on BBC Television's variety show, The Good Old Days, in the 1970s and 1980s. Dawson co-hosted Prince Edward's charity television special The Grand Knockout Tournament in 1987. When Richard Wilson turned down the part of Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot In The Grave, writer David Renwick considered Dawson for the role, but Wilson changed his mind before it was offered.
In 1991, Dawson starred in the BBC television production of Nona, an adaptation of the 1977 play La Nona ("Grandma") by Roberto Cossa for the Performance series. Performing in drag, he was cast as a 100-year old, compulsive eater in a Buenos Aires household.
Dawson was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in December 1971 when Eamonn Andrews surprised him on Opportunity Knocks,[citation needed] and again 21 years later, in what would be one of his last television appearances, when he was surprised by Michael Aspel on stage at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, at the curtain call of the pantomime Dick Whittington in December 1992.[citation needed] His final TV appearance was on the LWT series Surprise, Surprise hosted by Cilla Black, in which he sang a comic rendition of "I Got You Babe" with a woman from the audience who wanted to sing with him. The episode was aired shortly after his death.
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Les Dawson
Leslie Dawson (2 February 1931 – 10 June 1993) was an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and pianist. He was known for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona, musical routines, and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife.
Les Dawson was born in Collyhurst, Manchester, on 2 February 1931, the only child of bricklayer Leslie Dawson (2 August 1905 – 10 April 1970) and Julia Nolan (14 January 1908 – 29 September 1957), who was of Irish descent. His first job was in the parcels department of the Manchester Co-op. He worked briefly as a journalist on the Bury Times.
Early in life, Dawson wrote poetry and kept it secret. It was not expected that someone of his working class background would have literary ambitions. In a BBC Television documentary, he spoke of his love for canonical figures in English literature, in particular the 19th-century essayist Charles Lamb, whose florid style influenced Dawson's. As a young man he appeared with The Nelson Players in Nelson, Lancashire as Mr Justice Wainwright and Carter, chief clerk to Sir Wilfrid Robarts QC in Agatha Christie's play Witness for the Prosecution in December 1956.
Dawson wrote in his autobiography that he had a job as a pianist in a Parisian brothel. Making a living as a pianist evolved into comedy when he got laughs from deliberately bad piano-playing by playing "all the wrong notes in exactly the right order" and complaining to the audience. He first rose to public prominence on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and worked as a comic on British television for the rest of his life.
Television series in which he appeared included the panel game Jokers Wild (1969–73) hosted by Barry Cryer, Sez Les (1969–76) and Dawson's Weekly (1975), all for Yorkshire Television. After joining the BBC, his TV projects were The Dawson Watch (1979–80), written by Andy Hamilton and Terry Ravenscroft, The Les Dawson Show (1978–89), written by Terry Ravenscroft, and the quiz show Blankety Blank, which he presented from 1984 until its cancellation in 1990. Dawson starred in Listen to Les on BBC Radio 2 in the 1970s and 1980s.
He made many appearances on BBC Television's variety show, The Good Old Days, in the 1970s and 1980s. Dawson co-hosted Prince Edward's charity television special The Grand Knockout Tournament in 1987. When Richard Wilson turned down the part of Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot In The Grave, writer David Renwick considered Dawson for the role, but Wilson changed his mind before it was offered.
In 1991, Dawson starred in the BBC television production of Nona, an adaptation of the 1977 play La Nona ("Grandma") by Roberto Cossa for the Performance series. Performing in drag, he was cast as a 100-year old, compulsive eater in a Buenos Aires household.
Dawson was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in December 1971 when Eamonn Andrews surprised him on Opportunity Knocks,[citation needed] and again 21 years later, in what would be one of his last television appearances, when he was surprised by Michael Aspel on stage at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, at the curtain call of the pantomime Dick Whittington in December 1992.[citation needed] His final TV appearance was on the LWT series Surprise, Surprise hosted by Cilla Black, in which he sang a comic rendition of "I Got You Babe" with a woman from the audience who wanted to sing with him. The episode was aired shortly after his death.