Richard Deacon (actor)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Sculpter Richard Deacon, see Richard Deacon

Richard Deacon (May 14, 1921 – August 8, 1984), born in Philadelphia, was an American television and motion picture actor.

He was a bald-pated and usually bespectacled character actor who often portrayed imperious authority figures. He made appearances on The Jack Benny Show as a salesperson. His best-known roles are Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Fred Rutherford on Leave It to Beaver and as Roger "Cutes" Buell on The Mothers-In-Law. He also appeared as a guest on the 1970s game show Match Game, and played Horace Vandergelder opposite Phyllis Diller's Dolly Gallagher Levi in a touring production of the musical Hello, Dolly!.

In real life, he was a gourmet chef. In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote a series of cookbooks and hosted a television series on microwave cooking. He would stand behind a desk and say to customers "I'm standing behind here because in a moment of spontaneity, I sold my pants".

On August 8, 1984, Deacon died from cardiovascular disease at the age of 63.

Posthumously, he was included as a gay actor and his interview with Boze Hadleigh was published in Hadleigh's Hollywood Gays (ISBN# 1-56980-083-9/PN1995.9.H55H33), pp.67-76, although during his lifetime he made no particular secret of his sexual orientation.