Rich Little, the man with a thousand voices 388d

Richard Caruthers Little, Rich Little for short, is a Canadian-American impersonator and voice actor. Little has long been known as a top impersonator of famous people around the world, leading to the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Voices”. 2i182e

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Youth and early career 6n4822

Born in Ottawa, Canada, Little was the second of three sons the Little family had. He had a talent for acting from an early age and especially loved imitating other people’s voices. It probably also helped that he enjoyed being around actors. Little was an usherette at the Elgin Theater in Ottawa, where he honed his voices while backstage. From the age of 11, Little starred in two documentary films for Crawley Films in Ottawa, and began his career as an amateur actor at the Ottawa Little Theatre, winning his first acting award at the Eastern Ontario Drama Festival in Deep River, Ontario for his role as “Bo Decker” in the play Bus Stop.

In his early teens, he formed a partnership with Geoff Scott, another budding voice impersonator, focusing on reproducing the voices of Canadian politicians such as then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker or Ottawa Mayor Charlotte Whitton By the age of 17, they began performing professionally in nightclubs. Rich performed in Ottawa’s Little Theater and became a successful DJ, frequently incorporating impersonations into his show. In 1963, he was invited to audition for Mel Tormé, who was producing a new variety show for Judy Garland. The audition landed him the job, and in 1964, Little made his American television debut on the Judy Garland Show on CBS, where he stunned Garland with his impersonations of various male celebrities. Her impersonation of James Mason in “A Star Is Born” charmed Garland, and that memorable appearance helped her break into showbiz.

Master of imitation 3q5a5q

Little became a master of mimicry, imitating more and more voices and astonishing audiences with his talent. He became best known for imitating the voice of US President Richard Nixon. In the 1970s, Little had numerous television appearances portraying Nixon, and once performed his impersonation right in front of Nixon himself, whom Little says he didn’t realize he was impersonating at all.

Little was a regular guest on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts in the 1970s, appearing on 24 of the specials, where he impersonated such celebrities as Don Rickles, Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart and Kirk Douglas.

NBC’s The Rich Little Show (1976) and The New You Asked for It (1981) were attempts to present Little in his own persona, away from his gallery of characters. Little also appeared in a second-season episode of The Muppet Show. He was named “Comedy Star of the Year” by the American Guild of Variety Artists in 1974.

An interesting fact in his career, outside of any comedic context, Little’s talent for impersonation has been used in films when an actor’s dialog has been affected by ill health. When David Niven proved too ill for his voice to be used in his appearances in Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) and Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), Little provided voice-over dubbing as an impersonation of Niven’s voice.

Little has appeared in the soap operas The Young and the Restless and Santa Barbara. He has also guest starred in other TV productions such as Fantasy Island, Chips, Murder She Wrote, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, Police Woman and Mannix.

Rich Little

Arrival in Las Vegas 1p134u

Little has been appearing in Las Vegas since the mid-1960s, when he appeared at the Golden Nugget and went on to play other Vegas venues such as The Sands, where he debuted in 1969 with a two-year contract. In 1973, he played Caesars Palace for four weeks opening for The Osmonds. He then appeared at the Desert Inn with Juliet Prowse for a month in 1974. Her appearances continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s; she headlined at the Desert Inn for eight years in the late 1970s and 1980s, at the MGM Grand with Nell Carter in 1985; at Bally’s with Charo in 1986; at the Sands in 1991 and 1992, and at the Golden Nugget again in 1991. With opportunities to work in television and movies dwindling, by about the mid-1980s Little’s career moved from Hollywood to Las Vegas.

Little sold his home in Los Angeles and moved to Las Vegas in 1990, where he bought a house in Las Vegas in 1992 when he signed an exclusive long-term contract with Sahara, staging a revised version of The Kopykats with other impersonators. He later moved to Paris Las Vegas, where he starred in The Presidents, a play about nine U.S. presidents from Kennedy to George W. Bush, beginning in 2002, and in 2004, he moved to Suncoast. From 2015 through 2024, Little was a regular performer at the Laugh Factory at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas. His hour-long show, Rich Little Live!” was a retrospective of his career, including video moments from his TV career, and was presented five nights a week.

The Tropicana closed in April 2024 and was demolished to make way for a new stadium for the Athletics baseball team, which will move from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2028. Little has said he plans to move to the Laugh Factory once a new location on the Las Vegas Strip is found for the club.

Other interesting facts about Rich Little 5g3x4u

Another little-known fact about Little is his talent as an artist. He started sketching as a young boy, drawing his family and friends. To date, he has drawn around 100 images of all the celebrities and politicians he impersonates, and in his shows he presents some of these charcoal sketches to the audience.

His biggest fear? A sore throat. “Other people just get colds and colds. I get a cold and John Wayne gets a cold, Orson Welles gets a cold, Nixon gets a cold and Truman Capote gets a cold. I get cold and it’s over,” says the actor.

In June of 1998, Little’s star was added to the Canadian Walk of Fame, alongside his current stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Palms Springs Walk of Fame and Las Vegas Walk of Fame; one of the few, if not the only celebrity to have achieved all four.

In January 2010, Little became a United States citizen and was sworn in, with a suggestion from the judge to do it like John Wayne! His wife at the time, Marie, also ed away that year. Little later created the Marie and Rich Little Foundation in his wife’s honor, which focuses on helping children, the homeless, and animals in distress.

Rich Little recently released his autobiography , “Little by Little” (Celebrities I’ve Known and Been) and it is now available in Romania on libris.ro for 297,23 lei/ex.

Sources: therichlittle.com, wikipedia, walkoffame.com