Bill Dana (comedian)

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Forman and Dana

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 the NBC sitcom The Bill Dana Show (1963-65), a spinoff of "The Danny Thomas Show," his Jose Jiminez character became a bumbling bellhop at a posh New York hotel. His snooty, irritable boss was played by Jonathan Harris. The cast also included Don Adams as a hopelessly inept house detective (an early incarnation of what was to become his "Maxwell Smart" character on Get Smart).

In 1970, responding to changing times, he stopped portraying the José Jimenez character.

Before appearing 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. His brother, Irving Szathmary, wrote the famous theme for the Get Smart television series.

Joey Forman's 1968 parody album about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, called The Mashuganishi Yogi ("mashuga" meaning crazy in Yiddish), was produced by Dana, and includes a cameo of Dana as Jimenez, as well as a cover appearance (see illustration). The album is a mock news conference, an extended question-and-answer session. The ersatz Puerto Rican–accented Jimenez asks the ersatz Indian-accented Yogi, "Why do you talk so funny?"

The José Jimenez character had a cameo in a humorous scene in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. The astronauts-in-training watch the Ed Sullivan Show while between tests at a military hospital. Sullivan is talking to Jimenez. ("Is that your crash helmet?" "Oh, I hope not!") A hispanic worker in the hospital observes Alan Shepherd (Scott Glenn) being perhaps a little too amused by the character. The hospital worker gets a measure of revenge when it comes time for the astronauts-in-training to receive an enema.