Tim Conway

I've never really taken anything very seriously.

I enjoy life because I enjoy making other people enjoy it. -Tim Conway

Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway
December 15, 1933 – May 14, 2019

Conway attended Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, where he majored in television and radio and was a disc jockey, and member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. When he graduated, Conway enlisted in the United States Army, where he served between 1956–1958. After his discharge from the Army, Conway returned to Cleveland and worked with Ernie Anderson on KYW-TV, an NBC affiliate, in 1958 and 1959. From 1960 to 1962, he was on WJW-TV (then a CBS affiliate, now a Fox affiliate) on a weekday morning film show (under the Ernie's Place banner), where he also wrote material for the comedic skits shown in between film intermissions. Conway also recorded a comedy album with Anderson, who himself gained national prominence as a voice over announcer for ABC Television in the 1970s.

WJW dismissed Conway in 1962, in part because he (and Anderson) misled station management into thinking he had experience as a director. Because of this move, which deprived Anderson of his co-host and comic foil, the station asked Anderson if he could host a B-grade (and lower) horror film show on Friday nights instead. Conway continued to make many appearances alongside Anderson's alter ego Ghoulardi, in addition to "Big Chuck" Schodowski, a station engineer who Anderson got to assume much of Conway's sidekick status (and who ultimately succeeded Anderson as co-host of the horror film program).

After he became famous, Conway resurfaced periodically on Cleveland television on the Hoolihan and Big Chuck and Big Chuck and Lil' John shows on WJW-TV, in guest spots and occasional skits. Conway has since made regular guest appearances at numerous "Ghoulardifest" functions held by WJW over the years, along with former Cleveland TV personality Bob "Hoolihan" Wells, in tribute to Anderson, who died in 1997.

Comedic actress Rose Marie visited WJW in 1961, as part of CBS's promotional practice of sending their major show stars directly to local affiliates: in this case, it was for The Dick Van Dyke Show. She viewed tapes of some of Anderson and Conway's skits and proceeded to take Conway under her wing. Following his departure from WJW, Conway moved to New York City; where, with Rose Marie's assistance, he auditioned for, and gained a spot on, ABC's The Steve Allen Show as a regular player. Conway (who by this point had officially changed his first name to Tim) continued on the show through its entire run.

Afterwards, he starred in a string of short-lived TV series, starting with 1967's Rango which starred Conway as an incompetent Texas Ranger.

Conway gained a national following from his role as the bumbling, naive Ensign Charles Parker, Executive Officer of the World War II PT-73, in the 1960s sitcom McHale's Navy, alongside Ernest Borgnine and Joe Flynn. Borgnine became a mentor and a good friend. Conway appeared at Borgnine's 90th birthday celebration and, four years later, paid tribute to his friend at 7th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on TNT. Conway said, "Borgnine was 'like a big teddy bear' and 'a very pleasant person to be around' when he worked with him on the World War Two sitcom 'McHale's Navy'."

Conway was part of one of the most infamous network TV programming catastrophes ever: Turn-On, a counter-cultural sketch comedy show on ABC was derided as a ripoff of NBC's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Ironically, Turn-On was created and directed by Laugh-In's creator George Schlatter. Even though Conway was listed only as a guest star on the pilot, which ABC broadcast on February 5, 1969, it was the only episode that ever aired.

Turn-On received enough immediate, negative reaction to force several ABC affiliates, including WEWS in Conway's hometown of Cleveland, to refuse to return to the program after the first commercial break. WEWS management also sent an angrily-worded telegram to the network's headquarters. Many West Coast affiliates received advance warning and refused to air the show. Conway remarked that the show's premiere party he attended also marked the program's cancellation party, but ABC did not officially cancel the program for several days.

Beginning in 1975, Conway was often paired with Don Knotts in family films from Disney, including The Apple Dumpling Gang and its 1979 sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. They also starred in two independent films, a boxing comedy called The Prize Fighter in 1979, and a 1980 mystery comedy film called The Private Eyes. In 1983, he starred in another TV show, Ace Crawford, Private Eye, a parody of detective series; it lasted only five episodes.

In 1970, The Tim Conway Show paired Conway with Joe Flynn of McHale's Navy in a sitcom as owner-pilots of a one-plane (a Beechcraft Model 18 named Lucky Linda) airline operated by the pair. Having "nowhere to run", this pressurized situation was ideal for the fast repartee of the lead actors. It debuted in January 1970 and the last new show aired in June 1970. 

In the fall of the same year, Conway was given his own hour-long variety show, The Tim Conway Comedy Hour, or The Tim Conway Comedy House,which, as his other series had, folded quickly, lasting only 13 weeks. Typical of his self-effacing humor, he ordered his car's license plate to reflect the short duration of the series: "13 WKS". (Conway was given another one-hour variety show ten years later, which revived the title The Tim Conway Show; see later section.)

Starting with the 1975–76 season, Conway became a regular on The Carol Burnett Show, after having been a frequent guest for the show's first eight seasons. Conway's work on the show earned him four Emmy Awards: one for writing and three for performance, one of which was before he became a regular. Two of Conway's memorable characters on the Burnett Show were:

• The Oldest Man, whose shaggy white hair, slow speech, and shuffling gait ran counter to the much-needed energy levels of the various occupations in which he was usually found. His comic inability to get said jobs done — usually with slapstick results to himself and, with many an ad-lib — both frustrated and 'broke up' his fellow sketch performers.

• Mr. Tudball, a businessman whose intentions of running a 'ship-shape' office were usually sunk by the bored indifference of his secretary, Mrs. Wiggins(Burnett). Although the character was widely thought to be Swedish, Conway used a Romanian accent learned from his mother. For example, his attempts to pronounce his secretary's name came out as "Mrs. Ah-huh-wiggins". He also used this accent for other characters, such as an inept dentist.

Conway could also get results with no dialogue, such as in a sketch in which he played a tired businessman seeking restful sleep in his hotel — and pestered by a housefly, created only by a sound effect and Conway's gazing after it. After much struggle, he manages to get the fly out of the room through the window; after returning to bed, he hears a persistent knock on his door, gets up to answer it, and opens the door, letting the fly (who was doing the knocking) back in.

Another skit, also without a word from Conway, featured him playing Simba, a lion raised by humans then released to the wild (based on the lioness Elsa in the film Born Free). Conway, told of the upcoming eviction from the comfortable home, caused Burnett and Harvey Korman to break up with an interminable process of packing to leave.

A prime example of his ability to make his co-stars laugh uncontrollably involved Lyle Waggoner as a captured American airman, with Conway as a stereotypical blond-haired Gestapo agent charged with his interrogation. Stating that "the Fuhrer" had taken particular interest, Conway produces a small Hitler hand puppet. Conway suggests to the puppet that singing might relax Waggoner's character to the point he is willing to talk. In a long, drawn-out fashion, the Hitler puppet (Conway providing a falsetto voice, with German accent) sings "I've Been Working on the Railroad", and with each passing verse, Waggoner loses more of his composure, finally laughing hysterically when puppet-Hitler screeches, "FEE-FI-Fiddely-I-O!"

A well-known outtake from the Carol Burnett Show is from the recurring "The Family" sketch, with Conway (as Mickey Hart) telling a mostly ad-libbed story about a circus elephant. As the story continues, the other cast members become increasingly unable to stay in character, leading up to Vicki Lawrence (in-character as Mama) finally asking, "You sure that little asshole's through?", resulting in all the cast members, including Conway, finally breaking up in gales of laughter.

Conway remained a regular cast member of The Carol Burnett Show until the program's run ended, in 1978.

In 1980, Conway again was given his own one-hour variety program, titled The Tim Conway Show (the title that was previously used for his 1970 sitcom). It aired on CBS, as his previous shows had, and debuted on March 22, 1980.^[14] It was originally a full hour but was reduced to half an hour in summer 1980. It lasted longer than any of his earlier self-titled series, ending in August 1981. The format was similar to that of The Carol Burnett Show, with several regular cast members performing in comedy sketches, interspersed with the occasional musical performance by a guest musician. Among the regulars in the cast were Maggie Roswell, Miriam Flynn, Eric Boardman, Jack Riley, and Dick Orkin. Former Burnett cast member Harvey Korman also became a Tim Conway Show regular in late 1980, after having earlier made guest appearances on the show, as had Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence.

In the spring of 1983, Conway starred in another situation comedy, Ace Crawford, Private Eye; a spoof of detective shows, it lasted only a month. In the summer of 1990, he starred in Tim Conway's Funny America, playing pranks in disguise on unsuspecting passersby around the United States while hidden cameras recorded the results, which Conway presented to a studio audience; it, too, lasted only a few weeks.

In the 1980s, Conway began appearing in a series of satirical how-to videos in which he plays a diminutive, dark-haired Scandinavian known as Dorf (a variation on "dwarf"), reprising his goofy Mr. Tudball accent. The Dorf character first appeared on the January 3, 1986 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In that episode, he was portraying a horse jockey. Dorf also appeared in the 1987 film Dorf on Golf and later appeared in eight other films on a variety of sports from baseball to auto racing. Dorf on Golf was remastered for DVD in 2007. In 2010, all of the Dorf films were remastered in a DVD Collection featuring all eight films, a behind-the-scenes with Dorf, and a commentary track by Tim Conway on "The Legend of the Paddle: The Oldie Hollis Story." Dorf also appeared on an episode of Tim Conway's Funny America in the summer of 1990, leading an aerobics class on his impossibly short legs.

In 2009, Conway's Dorf character started "helping" Santa Claus on the website iSpotSanta. Each year, Dorf had three sketches; in 2009, he tried to give Santa his Christmas list, failing and accidentally hitting Santa with a golf ball. Then, in 2010, he tried to give all of the world's letters to Santa directly using jet rockets to fly to his sleigh, cannonballs, and more.

Conway made many guest appearances and other roles in television.

He guest-starred in ABC's Coach, for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series playing Kenny Montague in the 1996 episode "The Gardener." Conway won another Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Bucky Bright in the 30 Rock episode "Subway Hero," which initially aired on April 17, 2008.

He has lent his voice to other TV shows including The Simpsons, Disney spin-off Hercules, Lloyd in Space, The Wild Thornberrys, Cybill, What's New, Scooby-Doo?, The Proud Family, Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy!, Caillou, and What's with Andy?. He also narrated The Secret Shortcut in Reading Rainbow and hosted The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration.

In 2002, Conway was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

On his 75th birthday in 2008, Conway was interviewed as a guest on The Bonnie Hunt Show and given a surprise cake by Bob Newhart.

In 2018, Conway was seen promoting The Carol Burnett Show and other classic television series on the MeTV television network.

Good Night Mr. Conway

Stay Tuned 

Tony Figueroa