Bill Dana (comedian)
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Bill Dana (born October 5, 1924) is a comedian, actor and screenwriter who often appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. He was born William Szathmary in Quincy, Massachusetts. Although he is of Hungarian-Jewish descent, Dana created the heavily accented Latino character José Jimenez for the Steve Allen Show. In 1970, responding to changing times, he stopped portraying the José Jimenez character.
Before stepping in front of a television camera for the first time on the Steve Allen Show in 1959, Dana had been a prolific comedy writer, an activity he continued into the 1980s, producing material for other actors on stage and screen. Dana wrote the script for the Get Smart theatrical film The Nude Bomb.
