Rip Taylor

**Rip Taylor** (born **Charles Elmer Taylor, Jr.**; b. January 13, 1931 – d. October 6, 2019) was an American stand-up comedian and actor.

## Early Life

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. Appearing as a comedian, Taylor made his first Las Vegas appearance in supporting the Eleanor Powell Show.

## Career

Taylor appeared in *The Jackie Gleason Show* in several guest appearances in the 1963-64 season as "the crying comedian."

He appeared in two episodes of *The Monkees* television series in 1968. He continued to work as a voice performer in *Here Comes the Grump* (as the title character) and in the second *The Addams Family* as Uncle Fester.

Throughout the 1970s, Taylor was a frequent celebrity guest panelist on game shows such as *Hollywood Squares*, *To Tell the Truth* and *The Gong Show* and has substituted for Charles Nelson Reilly on *The Match Game*. Taylor became a regular on Sid & Marty Krofft's *Sigmund and the Sea Monster*, playing Sheldon, a sea-genie who lived in a conch shell. Also, Taylor was a regular on *The Brady Bunch Hour*, playing the role of neighbor/performer Jack Merrill. Taylor also had a short-lived send-up of beauty pageants called *The $1.98 Beauty Show* created by *The Gong Show* producer Chuck Barris in 1978. Taylor appeared as a celebrity guest in the 1990 version of *Match Game*. In 1979, he was the voice of C.J. from the Hanna-Barbera TV movie *Scooby Goes Hollywood*.

In 1988, Taylor and Patty Duke appeared on *Super Password* for one week. On one of the episodes, in the first game of the match, Taylor was struggling to give a clue to the word "Testimony". After coming up with "Episcopalian", host Bert Convy humorously remarked about Taylor's struggles and inadvertently talked over Duke's clue to her partner, which was "witness". Duke was allowed to repeat the clue but instead blurted out the password, which caused Convy to lose all control in the proceedings. Taylor got up, threw a red stool to the ground and followed that up by taking his toupee for what he said as the first time he had ever done that on network television. After he shook it at the camera and said "That's Not Fair!" twice, Taylor sat back down for while Convy picked up the toupee and put it between his suit jacket and shirt, joking about having "hair on (his) chest". Taylor put the toupee back, inadvertently put it on backward, then took it off and left it off for the rest of the show. Once order was finally restored, Taylor and his partner finally solved the puzzle, which was "Nuts" on the Next word and Convy remarked on how fitting it was to have had that as a solution.

Other appearances include the television show *The Kids in the Hall*. He was referred to as Uncle Rip by one of the show's characters, Buddy Cole.

In 1997, Taylor appeared in a segment of the show *Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction*. He played the role of Elmo Middleton in the segment titled "The Man in the Model T". Also in the same year, he appeared as himself on the sitcom *Brotherly Love* in the episode "Easy Come Easy Go" He also portrayed Chief Undersecretary Wartle in the graphical adventure game *Zork: Grand Inquisitor* in 1997.

In 2003, Taylor also appeared as himself on the NBC sitcom *Will and Grace*. In 2005, he appeared as himself on an episode of ABC TV's *George Lopez*. Taylor guest-starred as a chef "Rappin' Rip" in four episodes of an earlier ABC sitcom featuring Lopez, *Life with Bonnie*.

Taylor is an accomplice of the Jackass crew. In 1995, he performed the intro to The Bloodhound Gang's *Use Your Fingers* album. and in 2002, he appeared in the final scenes of *Jackass: The Movie*, wielding a pistol that when fired, released a sign that read "The End." Taylor's section of the film was originally considerably longer and ended with him complaining about the heat and fanning himself with his toupee. This footage was included on the DVD of the film. He did the same thing at the ending of *Jackass Number Two* and *Jackass 3D*. In the credits of the 2005 remake of *The Dukes of Hazzard*, Taylor shows up in a blooper reel.

He guest-starred in *The Suite-Life wit Zack & Cody* episode "Loosely Ballroom" as Leo. Taylor is also in some episodes of *The Emperor's New Groove*, as the voice of the Royal Record Keeper. Taylor was also recently in the Jetix animated series *Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!*.

Taylor was also in the 1990 Summer movie *DuckTales: The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp* as the voice of the Genie.

Taylor has made occasional appearances in movies, usually in broad comedies like the R-rated *Deep Throat* parody *Chatterbox!*. In *Amazon Women on the Moon*, a funeral service turns into a celebrity roast when guest Rip Taylor shows up to "honor" the deceased. In Cheech and Chong's *Things Are Tough All Over*, he picks them up in the middle of nowhere driving a convertible full of props. Rip then proceeds to drive them to Las Vegas and telling jokes about the whole way and moving Chong to tears from laughter. In 1993, Taylor also appeared in *Tom and Jerry: The Movie* as Captain Kiddie and in *Wayne's World 2*. In 1993's *Indecent Proposal* as Demi Moore's boss, he appeared without his toupee.

Taylor made a special appearance at the end of the 1,000 episode of G4's video game review show *X-Play*. Taylor more recently made a guest appearance on a 2012 episode of *The Aquabats! Super Show!* where he played a Genie reminiscent of his character on *Sigmund and the Sea Monster*.

## Live Theater

Taylor appeared for three years in the burlesque-themed musical comedy *Sugar Babies* and was featured on the soundtrack album. He has been a frequent co-star with Debbie Reynolds in her live shows in Las Vegas, Reno, and Tahoe.

## Outside the Entertainment Industry

In 2006, Taylor returned to the nation's capital, his hometown, as the grand marshal of Washington, D.C.'s Capital Pride Parade.

## Death

In October 2019, Taylor was at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, having been hospitalized after suffering a seizure the week prior. He died on October 6, 2019, at the age of 88.

## Shows hosted

* *The $1.98 Beauty Show*
* *Trivia Track*

## Shows appeared

* *Match Game*
* *To Tell the Truth*
* *Hollywood Squares*
* *The Gong Show*
* *Battlestars*
* *Super Password*
* *I've Got a Secret*