Leslie Dawson Jr. was an English comedian, actor, writer, and presenter. He is best remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife. Dawson claimed in his autobiography that he began entertaining as a pianist in a Parisian brothel.
About Les Dawson in brief
Leslie Dawson Jr. was an English comedian, actor, writer, and presenter. He is best remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife. His characteristic routines featured Roy Barraclough and Dawson as elderly women, Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham. Dawson claimed in his autobiography that he began entertaining as a pianist in a Parisian brothel. He made his television debut on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and became a prominent comic on British television for the rest of his life. He was a heavy smoker and drinker. When not working he would often drink a bottle of whisky and smoke 50 cigarettes a day. Dawson was initiated into the famous show business fraternity, the Grand Order of Water Rats and served as that order’s \”King Rat\” in 1985.
He played the 100-year-old, compulsive eating mother in Buenos Aires during the recession of 1981. In 1991 he starred in the BBC production Nona Nona, about the life of a 100 year-old woman in a Buenos Aires household. His final appearance was on the Surprise, Surprise series 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 aired shortly after his death and he was also a regular panist on the popular comedy panel game Jokers Wild, hosted by Barry Cryer, where he would compete to see who knew the most jokes on various topics.
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This page is based on the article Les Dawson published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 03, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
