It's important to me that on 'Family Feud' I could kiss all the people. It sounds crazy but when I first came here Petula Clark was on a show with Nat King Cole and he kissed her on the cheek and eighty-one stations in the South canceled him. I kissed black women daily and nightly on 'Family Feud' and the world didn't come to an end, did it?

Acting career

In 1963 Dawson appeared in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show in the role of dapper entertainer "Racy Tracy" Rattigan. He had a minor role in Universal's Munster Go Home!. [citation needed]


Later career
Dawson parodied his TV persona in 1987 by co-starring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action film The Running Man in which he portrayed the evil egotistical game-show host Damon Killian.

In 2012 Dawson died of complications from esophageal cancer. Richard Dawson (born Colin Lionel Emm; November 20 1932 – June 2 2012) was an English-born American actor and comedian and a game show host and panelist in the United States.