Dick Gautier: The Renaissance Dilettante

Dick Gautier, who passed away last month, age 85, seemed to be more of a phenomenon of the 1970s than a definable personality. He started his career as a standup comic and was nominated for a Tony Award in his Broadway debut before being cast in what became his most identifiable role, Hymie, the robot secret agent on the '60s sitcom "Get Smart," although he costarred in only six episodes. In 1975, he starred in "When Things Were Rotten," a comedy series spoofing Robin Hood created by Mel Brooks, but that lasted a mere 13 episodes; it should be noted, however, that fans remember this short-lived series more fondly than Mel's second attempt to lampoon the legend in the 1993 motion picture "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."

He was an accomplished caricaturist and the author of a number of instructional books about the art of drawing cartoons. He wrote a handful of popular songs. He constructed dollhouses and crafted their miniature furnishings. He was a crossword puzzle buff and a lover of other brainteasers. He would refer to himself noncommittally as a "Renaissance Dilettante."

However, what people remember the most about Dick Gautier was his ubiquitous presence on a gamut of game shows from the late '60s into the early '80s, appearances - notably on "The Hollywood Squares" and the various incarnations of "Password" and "Match Game" - marked by his white-toothed, Adonic countenance, unbelievably voluminous coif of raven locks, and unbuttoned shirts, baring a bronzed, shaved chest, invariably adorned with gold chains, and by his disarming, self-deprecating wit.

From 1974 to 1975, Dick Gautier and his then-wife, Barbara
Stuart (best known as Bunny, the often contentious girlfriend
of Sgt. Carter on "Gomer Pyle: U.S.M.C."), made 49 appearances
on the game show "Tattletales," in which celebrity couples
revealed secrets about their private lives. They're joined on this
episode by Bobby Van and Elaine Joyce, and Anne Meara and
Jerry Stiller. Bert Convy was the program's garrulous host.

In the late 1950s, Dick Gautier spent a peacetime stint as a seaman in the U.S. Navy, producing and performing in shows for the Special Services department. After his discharge, he started doing standup comedy in San Francisco clubs, notably the hungry i (where he and Mort Sahl were among the first comics booked at the iconic hotspot), before heading to New York City. During a gig at the Blue Angel nightclub in 1960, he was spotted by famed dancer-choreographer Gower Champion, who was preparing to direct a new Broadway musical titled "Bye Bye Birdie," inspired by the recent induction of Elvis Presley into the U.S. Army. Gautier auditioned for the role of rock n' roll superstar Conrad Birdie (the name was a play on singer Conway Twitty, who, at the time, was a rival of Presley's) and beat out 750 other hopefuls.

Dick Gautier shares a scene in "Bye Bye Birdie" with Paul Lynde
and Michael J. Pollard. The original Broadway cast also featured
Dick Van Dyke, Chita Rivera, Susan Watson, Kay Medford,
and Charles Nelson Reilly.

Gautier was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (the equivalent to the Best Supporting Actor Oscar), but as theater politics would have it, Dick Van Dyke, who was, in fact, the star of the production, was also nominated in the same category, to avoid direct competition with Richard Burton, who was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical for his role as King Arthur in "Camelot." Indeed, Burton won his Tony, as did Van Dyke.

Unfortunately, the part of Conrad Birdie in the 1963 film version of "Bye Bye Birdie" (a starring debut for Ann-Margret, in her third motion picture) went to Jesse Pearson, a singer who had stepped into the stage role when Gautier got ill. Pearson's movie career was short-lived, to say the least, and he ended up appearing in a handful of TV shows. He died of cancer at the age of 49.

Ex-Navy seaman Dick Gautier did make his screen debut - appropriately playing a sailor - in the 1964 service comedy "Ensign Pulver," a sequel to the popular 1955 film "Mister Roberts," starring Henry Fonda and James Cagney. Jack Lemmon won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his breakout performance as the prank-pulling Pulver in the original picture. The sequel was likewise meant to be a star-making vehicle for Robert Walker Jr. (whose father was best known for his role as the psychopathic killer in Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train").

Robert Walker Jr. (center) shares a scene in "Ensign Pulver" with
Walter Matthau (as Doc) and (far right) Larry Hagman, future
"The Hollywood Squares" host Peter Marshall, and James Coco. 

Directed by Joshua Logan, who co-wrote and directed the original stage presentation of "Mister Roberts" (as well as taking over directing the film version when original director John Ford fell ill), "Ensign Pulver" featured many now familiar faces, among them Burl Ives, Walter Matthau, Tommy Sands (who was married at the time to Nancy Sinatra), Larry Hagman, Peter Marshall, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Jack Nicholson, George Lindsey, James Farentino, and James Coco.

It looks like Dick Gautier (Stefanowski), catching some rays on
the set of "Ensign Pulver," is on the receiving end of catcalls
from costars Jack Nicholson and George "Goober" Lindsey.

Dick Gautier's subsequent films were few and far between. In 1967, he had a supporting role in the comedy "Divorce American Style," scripted and produced by Norman Lear, starring Gautier's "Bye Bye Birdie" cast mate Dick Van Dyke (pictured below, with Gautier), with Debbie Reynolds, Jason Robards, and Jean Simmons.

In 1977, Gautier had an amusing cameo as a crooked televangelist in "Fun with Dick and Jane" (pictured below), a 1977 satire of President Jimmy Carter era economics that cast George Segal and Jane Fonda as corporate "Bonnie & Clyde" outlaws, directed by Ted Kotcheff ("North Dallas Forty").

The year 1977 also saw Dick Gautier's performance as a governor who pardons Billy Jack for whatever crimes he committed in the first few films, in "Billy Jack Goes to Washington," an overlong remake of director Frank Capra's 1939 classic, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," produced by, of all people, Frank Capra Jr. Writer-director-star Tom Laughlin wanted James Stewart, the screen's original "Mr. Smith," to portray his remake's corrupt senator, a role the movie veteran turned down and was picked up by venerable character actor E.G. Marshall.

From the 1964 sitcom "The Baileys of Balboa" (costarring a 25-year-old Judy Carne) to the 2010 FX drama "Nip/Tuck," Dick Gautier made guest appearances in at least 55 television series.

Patricia, the American "identical cousin" on "The Patty Duke Show,"
befriends down-on-his-luck hepcat blower Dick Gautier.

Dick Gautier portrays French dress designer Aubert in a
1966 episode of "Bewitched," with Elizabeth Montgomery.

On a 1973 episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," Gautier guests
as a sportscaster and off-camera Casanova whom news associate
producer Mary Richards (Moore) is tasked to fire.

In 1973, British actress Diana Rigg (best known as
the fetching Emma Peel on the campy spy series
"The Avengers") starred in the American sitcom
"Diana," an attempt to capitalize on the success of
independent-women situation comedies like "The
Mary Tyler Show." The series lasted less than one
season. Dick Gautier appears on the last episode.

Villainous alchemist Count Cagliostro (Dick Gautier) discovers
how to turn lead into gold on a 1978 episode of "Wonder Woman."

On a 1978 "Love Boat" cruise, Dick Gautier poses with costars
Paul Williams, Marcia Wallace, Michele Lee, and Barbara Rhoades.

Bob Newhart had recently ended his six-season run
on "The Bob Newhart Show" when he starred in the
1980 TV movie "Marathon," with Dick Gautier and
Herb Edelman (best known as Beatrice Arthur's ex-
 husband on "The Golden Girls"). In 1974, Newhart
and Gautier had costarred in the made-for-television
comedy "Thursday's Game," written by James L. Brooks
(co-creator of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and an
executive producer of "The Simpsons") and featuring
a rare TV performance by Gene Wilder.

Dick Gautier channels Barbra Streisand (?) as a star 
drag performer in a 1984 episode of "Murder, She Wrote."

Riding the tide of the campy superhero craze of the mid-1960s that was initiated by ABC-TV's "Batman" series, starring Adam West and Burt Ward, rival networks NBC and CBS launched competing superhero sitcoms in early 1967. William Daniels, later a two-time Emmy Award winner for "St. Elsewhere," starred in NBC's "Captain Nice" (created by Buck Henry, who came up with "Get Smart" with Mel Brooks), while CBS's "Mr. Terrific" featured stage actor Stephen Strimpell in the title role of a mild-mannered service station attendant who dons a wing-suit to combat criminals for "The Bureau of Secret Projects." Dick Gautier portrayed his clueless coworker at the gas station. Both shows went virtually head-to-head on Monday evenings, and neither one lasted more than a single season.

Dick Gautier would recall "Mr. Terrific" as "a piece of crap! I didn't even audition or read...They had seen me on 'The Patty Duke Show'...Kind of a good part that was very showy and I was fast-talking and glib...They saw it at Universal and said, 'Man, he'd be great for the other guy in 'Mr. Terrific.'" Gautier's agent asked him if he wanted to do it. "I said, 'I don't know, it's about a guy who takes a pill and becomes a superhero...It sounds like shit.' He said, 'Yeah, it's a piece of shit, but we're guaranteed 13 episodes. Could you use the money?'...We did 13 and that was it. Goodbye."

The cast of "Mr. Terrific" features familiar
faces John McGiver and Paul Smith.

According to Gautier, star Stephen Strimpell "had delusions of grandeur. He thought he was doing the Cherry Lane Theater...He went into the producer's office and said, 'I won't say this crap!' And he threw the script in his face. I said to him, 'Jesus, man, this is a kiddie show! What are you doing? Get your money, button your lip and go home.' God, that's all that was, a kiddie show."

When actors Yvonne Craig and Burt Ward reprised their roles as Batgirl and Robin the Boy Wonder from the abovementioned "Batman" series for a 1973 public service commercial promoting equal pay for women, Adam West, who was trying to distance himself from the program, declined to take part. In his place, Dick Gautier donned the bat cowl and cape and succeeded in making viewers believe he was the genuine article (pictured below).

In 1973, Gautier was cast in an "adult" sitcom, "Here We Go Again," depicting the comedic problems that ensue when a newlywed couple move close to the homes of their former spouses. The series, which reunited Gautier with "Ensign Pulver" costar Larry Hagman, featured Diane Baker and Nita Talbot (pictured below). It lasted 13 episodes, and five years later, Hagman moved on to "Dallas."

Although it aired for just a half season, "When Things Were Rotten," created in 1975 by Mel Brooks as a parody of the Robin Hood legends, still maintains an adored cult status among nostalgic fans. Brooks was never directly credited as a writer or director, but the episodes bore his comedic hallmarks, such as sight gags, one-liners, literal humor (when unruly villagers are ordered to hold their tongues, they do just that), anachronisms, and topical spoofs.

Dick Gautier stars as Robin Hood in "When Things Were Rotten."
Misty Rowe (a "Hee Haw Honey" who portrayed Marilyn Monroe
in a pair of low-budget exploitation pictures) plays Maid Marian,
while Robin's Merry Men include Bernie Kopell (KAOS bad guy
Siegfried on "Get Smart") as Alan-a-Dale, Dick Van Patten as
Friar Tuck, David Sabin as Little John, and comedic actor Richard
Dimitri as Bertram (and his evil twin, Renaldo).

Actually requiring viewers to pay attention, Brooks' rapid-fire method of comedy seemed out of place in the arena of network television, and the series never found its audience, especially against ratings competitors "Little House on the Prairie" and "Tony Orlando and Dawn." It was replaced by "The Bionic Woman," which - go figure - became a hit. Bernie Kopell and Dick Van Patten moved on to more successful, longer running series, "The Love Boat" and "Eight Is Enough," respectively.

Dick Gautier's previous experience working for Mel Brooks was when he memorably played Hymie the deadpan robot on "Get Smart," in six episodes, from 1966 to 1968. In the series, Hymie was originally created by KAOS, the evil international criminal organization, but was soon recruited by CONTROL, the spy agency dedicated to "goodness and niceness," in the words of top agent Maxwell Smart (series star Don Adams). Actually, Hymie was at first reluctant to join CONTROL, disliking violence and voicing a desire to work for IBM because "it's a nice place to meet some intelligent machines." He ultimately joined CONTROL out of fondness for Max, the first person to treat him like a real human.

Imbued with superhuman strength and exceptional intelligence,
Hymie has an unfortunate tendency to follow commands
to exceedingly literal levels. 

In his later years, Dick Gautier pulled no punches in his recollections of some of the comedy greats he met throughout his early career. In 1956, Gautier was "flailing around in New York trying to get something going," when he appeared on "Stanley," a short-lived live sitcom starring Buddy Hackett and Carol Burnett. Sixty years later, Gautier remembered Hackett as "mean from the ground up...He was just never nice...I tell you, he was just impossible to work with...Carol Burnett never knocks anybody, but boy, she does not like Buddy Hackett!"

Looking back on encounters with old-time comedian "Professor" Irwin Corey (who died February 6, 2017, age 102), Gautier said he knew him well and called him "incredibly brilliant," but "he is a terrible human being...He's the lowest kind of prick you would ever want to meet. God, is he awful."

So it came as a surprise, when asked in a 2015 interview about working with Don Adams on "Get Smart," Gautier, considering his outspokenness, bluntly replied, "I'd rather the rest of our conversation be off the record."

In that same 2015 interview, Dick Gautier recalled auditioning for Mel Brooks for the role of Hymie. "Mel said he loved my timing. He was quoted as saying I had exquisite timing. I think that's why I got the part of Robin Hood in 'When Things Were Rotten.'"

However, it wasn't long before Gautier heard that Brooks wanted to fire him. "This has never been told before in public," the actor admitted in 2015. Brooks "thought I was difficult on 'When Things Were Rotten,' and I was. They wrote me a little vain and egotistical in the pilot, but they didn't know how to write me so that it was funny. Everyone else was funny and my character wasn't. So they kept going back and forth: 'Do it this way, do it that way.' I was in the middle, and I just didn't know what the hell to do. I guess I was being problematic. 'Guys, who am I? What am I? What direction am I going in?' I've never been able to talk to Mel about it and defend myself...I have never been difficult on any other show." At least judging from the behind-the-scenes snapshot above, Brooks didn't find Misty Rowe difficult on the set of "When Things Were Rotten."

Coincidentally, on an episode of "When Things Were Rotten," comic actor Robert Ridgely reprised, in a way, his role as the hangman from "Blazing Saddles" (pictured below).

"This one is a doozy!" Robert Ridgely as Boris in "Blazing Saddles."

In his over-the-top characterization - an outlandish parody of Boris Karloff's clubfooted executioner in the creepy 1939 historical melodrama "Tower of London" - Ridgely appeared as an axe-wielding headsman in "When Things Were Rotten." Ridgely (who also had a memorable cameo as an airport flasher in Mel Brooks' Hitchcock spoof "High Anxiety"), reprised the cartoonish Karloff impression one more time, as a royal hangman in Brooks' 1993 comedy "Robin Hood: Men in Tights." But we digress.

The 1980s sparked a new calling for Dick Gautier as a voice actor for numerous animated superhero series and video games, notably as Cobra Emperor Serpentor on "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" and as Autobot protagonist Rodimus Prime on "The Transformers" (pictured below).

Gautier also regularly performed the voice of Louis, a big, yellow bulldog, on the Hanna-Barbera series "Foorfur" and as Spike the bulldog on the Hanna-Barbera series "Tom & Jerry Kids" (both pictured below). Gautier worked on several other animated shows, including the "Transformers" knockoff "Challenge of the GoBots" and "Inhumanoids."

Speaking of cartoons, Dick Gautier started drawing caricatures when he was 16 for his high school newspaper. From the mid-1980s to the late '90s, he published at least seven instructional guides, beginning with 1985's The Art of Caricature.

Gautier's user-friendly how-to books were notable for his casual, conversational, self-deprecating style of writing.

One of Gautier's books illustrates caricatures of "NYPD Blue"
star Dennis Franz and "Jaws" actor Roy Scheider.

Another page depicts the transition from a realistic
rendering of Jay Leno to full-blown exaggeration.

Sammy Davis Jr. as depicted by Dick Gautier

Gautier's vision of W.C. Fields

The Moviehouse isn't sure if any of Dick Gautier's
true feelings about his "Get Smart" costar Don Adams
came through in this caricature...

...However, we will admit the artist was
kinder to himself in this self-portrait.

Occasionally, Gautier's art took a serious turn,
as seen here in a portrait of Buster Keaton...

...and in this image of a Native American.

Gautier loved to draw and loved to think about drawing when he wasn't. "Cartooning has been my hobby, my therapy, a delicious pastime and on occasion my salvation - it got me through some tight financial spots when I was a struggling actor," he wrote in the introduction to his 1989 book The Creative Cartoonist.

In 1993, Dick Gautier wrote and illustrated a children's book titled A Child's Garden of Weirdness: Illustration, Verse and Worse.

As mentioned at the onset, Gautier handcrafted children's dollhouses, including the miniature furniture (illustrated below).

Possibly the least known avocation of Dick Gautier was his dabbling as a screenwriter early in his career, in collaboration with his "Ensign Pulver" costar, and future host of "The Hollywood Squares," Peter Marshall (pictured below). Not unlike Gautier, Marshall started his show business career in nightclubs, as part of a comedy team with Tommy Noonan, from the late 1940s into the early '60s.

Besides "Ensign Pulver," Gautier and Marshall appeared together in a Las Vegas staging of "Bye Bye Birdie," leading to a close friendship between the two. On a lark, Gautier and Marshall occasionally performed as a comedy duo.

"We were struggling before 'Hollywood Squares,' trying to make a buck, and we started writing," Marshall told an interviewer. They were killing time in Acapulco, when, according to Marshall, "A friend of ours said, 'Hey, I'm doing a movie on marijuana. Would you write the script?'" In a separate interview, Gautier remembered, "We said, 'Okay.' We started researching marijuana. We weren't smokers, but we...discovered that the worst thing about it was that it was illegal." He said, "We wrote it in 11 days...a piece of shit." Marshall recalled that their acquaintance responded, "'That's perfect. We're shooting in ten days.' Didn't even have a script!"

"We set the beginning," Gautier commented, "where you see it being harvested...and cut into packages and sent to America. There...we follow the five packages." The 1968 picture was created as a vehicle for Fabian Forte, an "American Bandstand" discovery and now fading teen idol. Gautier noted the filmmakers "didn't like" what he and Peter Marshall came up with. "They said, 'No, this is too literate and too boring.' So they had Fabian under contract. They wanted him to play a high school teacher who starts selling it to the kids."

Fabian gets a shakedown from the local fuzz in "Maryjane."

Peter Marshall thought, "The script had been real good, but they turned it into a terrible picture." Dick Gautier offered, "The only scene in 'Maryjane' that I like I happen to be in. When (Fabian is) thrown into jail, I am a hippie. I come in with a beard and all kinds of shit" (pictured below).

In 1972, Dick Gautier and Peter Marshall co-wrote the screenplay for "Wild in the Sky," a counterculture anthem about a trio of anti-war guerrillas who hijack a B-52 to destroy Fort Knox with an atomic bomb. The picture's original title was "God Bless the U.S.A." (also known as "God Bless the Bomb").

The dark comedy gave 30-year-old actor Brandon de Wilde his last screen role as Josh, the leader of the radical threesome. Brandon, whose breakthrough role as a child actor came as a hero-worshipping homesteader's kid in the classic 1953 western "Shane," died at the age of 30 in a 1972 car accident near Denver. Dick Gautier had a supporting role in a cast that included Keenan Wynn, Robert Lansing, Bernie Kopell, and "Hogan's Heroes" costar Larry Hovis.

Targeting another audience, "Wild in the Sky"
was alternatively released as "Black Jack" to
capitalize on the top-billed performance by
future "The Rookies" costar Georg Stanford Brown.

For whatever reasons, the otherwise fast and firm friendship between Dick Gautier and Peter Marshall subsequently fell by the wayside. Marshall remarked, "He stopped talking to me at one point, and I could never figure out why." Gautier didn't remember what happened, saying, "I pissed him off or he pissed me off or who knows." Marshall said, "We weren't friends anymore, which is sad, because I loved him, and he is really a talented man." "After awhile," Gautier commented, "you just don't even remember what it was about...Like fighting with your wife. 'What the hell were we arguing about?'"

Celebrities serving Thanksgiving dinner at the Los Angeles Mission
in 1997 include (left to right) singer Jerry Vale, "The Wonder Years"
dad Dan Lauria, "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak, mission preisdent
Mike Edwards, Dick Gautier, Steve Allen's wife Jayne Meadows, and
"Family Ties" costar Justine Bateman.

In 2009, Dick Gautier wrote his autobiography, titled Rocky Road to Semi-Stardom (Remembrances Carefully Chosen to Make Me Look Good). Looking good never seemed to pose a problem for Gautier, from his prime in 1975 (pictured below, left) to his early 80s (below, right).

Dick Gautier was 85 when he passed away at an assisted living facility after a lengthy illness. He was survived by his third wife, psychologist Tess Hightower, three children, four grandchildren, and five great grandchildren.

Aloha, Seaman Stefanowski - er, Gautier!
(Our guess is that "Operation Pazifik" is German for "Ensign Pulver")