Dick Shawn

Oneofakind nightclub comedian and singer Dick Shawn ne Richard Schulefand was as offthewall as they came and as such proved to be rather an acquired taste Way ahead of his time most say it was extremely difficult indeed to know how to properly tap into this mans eclectic talents Shawn began inching toward the forefront during the bebop 50s and early 60s with his odd penchant for playing cool cats During his mild bid for film stardom he was topbilled as a hip laid back genie in the thoroughly dismal satire The Wizard of Baghdad 1960 but seemed to have better luck when taken in smaller doses He fared quite well opposite another wayoutthere comedian Ernie Kovacs in Wake Me When Its Over 1960 as a hustling soldier out to make a buck in the Far East Also on the plus side he replaced Zero Mostel in the bawdy musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum on Broadway and stole a small scene in the allstar epic comedy Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 1963 By far the one role that completely overshadows all of his other hard work is his mock portrayal of a singing Adolf Hitler in the showwithinamovie The Producers 1968 In the film which starred Mostel and Gene Wilder as two con artists deliberately producing a stage bomb called Springtime for Hitler Shawn sang the hammy absurdly narcissistic song Love Power The movie finally captured Shawn in his element but this stroke of genius of matching actor to role would never happen again for him For the most part his roles came off slick and smarmy and were stuck in mediocre material Shawn won a huge fan base however touring in oneman stage shows which contained a weird mix of songs sketches satire philosophy and even pantomime A bright innovative wit one of his best touring shows was called The Second Greatest Entertainer in the World During the shows intermission Shawn would lie visibly on the stage floor absolutely still during the entire time By freakish coincidence Shawn was performing at the University of California at San Diego in 1987 when he suddenly fell forward on the stage during one of his spiels about the Holocaust The audience of course laughed thinking it was just a part of his odd shtick In actuality the 63yearold married actor with four children had suffered a fatal heart attack A notsurprising end for this thoroughly offbeat and intriguing personality