Published: Jan. 30, 2011 at 10:37 AM
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 30 (UPI) — Impressionist-comedian David Frye, who made a career of pretending to be someone else, especially Richard Nixon, has died in Las Vegas, officials said.
Frye, 77, died from cardiopulmonary arrest Monday in Las Vegas, where he lived, The New York Times reported.
His death was confirmed by the Clark County coroner’s office.
Frye got his start in New York’s Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, at first aping the voices and sometimes quirky movements of well-known actors. But his career moved ahead quickly after he started impersonating President John F. Kennedy.
Soon he was doing Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, but it was Nixon who propelled his career, the newspaper said. In 1969 he released a comedy album for Electra called “I am the president.”
“I do Nixon not by copying his real actions but by feeling his attitude, which is that he cannot believe that he really is president,” Frye said in Esquire magazine in 1971.
Frye performed on numerous television variety shows and he was a top draw at Las Vegas casinos for years.
In one skit Frye, as Nixon, had the president smoking marijuana. “I see spacious skies and fruited plains and amber waves of grain,” Frye intoned as Nixon after smoking the joint.
Frye was born as David Shapiro in Brooklyn in June 1934.
He served with an Army Special Services unit in France and when he returned to New York to work as a salesman for his father’s office cleaning company he started filling in at the Village Gate.
Talent scouts saw his impersonation of Robert Kennedy and booked him on “The Merv Griffin Show.” Soon he was appearing regularly on a variety of programs, including “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” and “The Tonight Show.”
His is survived by one sister, Ruth.
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Tags: career, clark-county, comedy, france, hubert-humphrey, impersonation, lyndon-johnson, nixon, president, president-john, richard-nixon, robert-kennedy, special, vegas, village