page_title: Bill Dana
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Bill Dana / Career
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Bill Dana and Danny Thomas from the television program The Danny Thomas Show. Dana played the character Jose Jimenez on the program.
context_page_description: William Szathmary, known as Bill Dana, was an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter. He often appeared on television shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, frequently in the guise of a heavily accented Bolivian character named José Jiménez. Dana often portrayed the Jiménez character as an astronaut.
context_section_description: Dana began his career as a page at NBC's famous Studio 6B while performing comedy in nightclubs around New York with partner Gene Wood. Starting in the 1950s, he appearances on television included The Imogene Coca Show and The Danny Thomas Show, as well as writing for and producing The Spike Jones Show.
  Dana's career took a major turn when he began writing stand-up routines for the young comedian Don Adams, including the now well-known "Would you believe?" jokes popularized by Get Smart. From there, he was brought in as a writer for The Steve Allen Show, where he created the José Jiménez character for the show's Man in the Street segments.
  On an Ed Sullivan Show appearance, Dana related a story of how a woman recognized him on the street, but knew him only as José Jiménez, and asked what his real name was.  Instead of his stage name, "Bill Dana", he gave her his real name, "William Szathmary". The woman rejoined: "Wow, no wonder you changed it to Jiménez!"
  Dana had several comedy albums but only one that strictly featured the Jose Jimenez character. One of the cuts;  "The Astronaut (Part 1 & 2)"...an interview from news reporter, writer and producer Don Hinkley...made it to the Billboard Top 40 charts at #19 in September 1961. Hinkley and Dana met as writers for the Allen show.
  In 1961, Dana made the first of eight appearances on The Danny Thomas Show, playing Jimenez as a bumbling but endearing elevator operator. The character was so well-received that it was spun off into his own NBC sitcom, The Bill Dana Show (1963–1965).  Jiménez was now a bellhop at a posh New York hotel. His snooty, irritable boss was played by Jonathan Harris. The cast also included Don Adams as a hopelessly inept house detective named Byron Glick; when the show was cancelled, Adams quickly used the Glick characterization as the basis for Maxwell Smart, and Get Smart premiered on NBC that fall.
  Before appearing in front of a television camera for the first time on The Steve Allen Show in 1959, Dana had been a prolific comedy writer, an activity he continued into the 1980s, producing material for other actors on stage and screen. Dana co-wrote the script for the Get Smart theatrical film The Nude Bomb. His brother, Irving Szathmary, wrote the theme song for the Get Smart television series.
  In 1966, Dana wrote the animated television movie Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?), in which he also supplied the voice of The White Knight (using his Jiménez voice). That same year, the Jiménez character was animated for the Paramount cartoon I Want My Mummy, written by Dana in collaboration with Howard Post. In 1966, Dana appeared uncredited in episode 48 of Batman playing José Jiménez, opening the window in the wall Batman was climbing and talking with him.
  In May 1967, Dana hosted his own late-night talk show, The Las Vegas Show, on the new United Network. Originated live from the Hotel Hacienda in Las Vegas, Nevada, the program was cancelled by the end of May when the United Network folded.  
  Joey Forman's 1968 parody album about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, called The Mashuganishi Yogi ("mashugana" meaning crazy or bizarre in Yiddish), was produced by Dana, and includes a cameo of Dana as Jiménez, as well as a cover appearance. The album is a mock news conference, an extended question-and-answer session. The ersatz Bolivian–accented Jiménez asks the ersatz Indian-accented Yogi: "Why do you talk so funny?"
  In 1970, responding to changing times and sensitivities, Dana stopped portraying the José Jiménez character; however, he played the character again on the 1988 revival of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Dana wrote the script for possibly the best known episode of the situation comedy All in the Family, entitled "Sammy's Visit", which featured Sammy Davis Jr. In 1976, he appeared in the "A Doctor's Doctor" episode of the NBC situation comedy The Practice as the hospital roommate of Danny Thomas's character Dr. Jules Bedford.
  The José Jiménez character was part of several scenes in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. Th
caption: Dana as José Jiménez on The Danny Thomas Show.
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