Take a look at the IMDb staff picks for the best movies and series coming in August.

Staff Picks: What to Watch in August

Get a closer look at the most searched stars on IMDb right now.

These Stars Are on the Rise

Richard Deacon was the bald, bespectacled character actor most famous for playing television producer Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) from 1961 to 1966. In the first season of that show he also continued to appear on the series he was already appearing on, Leave It to Beaver (1957), playing Lumpy Rutherford's father Fred.

Born on May 14, 1922, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the tall, bass-voiced Deacon took to the boards as a stage actor. At the beginning of his career, stage legend Helen Hayes told Deacon that he would never become a leading man but encouraged him to become a character actor. It was good advice, as Deacon's show business career lasted decades and only was terminated by his death.

Because of his looks and authoritative voice, Deacon usually was typecast as a humorless or foul-tempered authority figure. He became a highly regarded supporting player in films, complimented by many of the leading actors he played opposite, including Jack Benny, Lou Costello and Cary Grant. However, it was in television that Deacon really thrived.

It was his five-year gig on "The Dick Van Dyke Show", where he earned television immortality playing the long-suffering brother-in-law of Alan Brady (the faux-TV star for whom Dick Van Dyke and his companion writers, Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie, wrote). Deacon's character was constantly harassed by Amsterdam's diminutive wisecracking character Buddy Sorrell. After the show ceased production (still at the top of the ratings; Carl Reiner had terminated the series in order to go out while the show was on top), Deacon co-starred on the TV sitcom The Mothers-In-Law (1967) with Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden (Deacon replaced original series co-star Roger C. Carmel as Ballard's husband in the second season after Carmel was fired from the series by producer Desi Arnaz for refusing to accept a pay cut). After the show was canceled, Deacon returned to work as a freelance actor. Back on the boards, he appeared in the long-running Broadway production of "Hello Dolly" as Horace Vandergelder, opposite Phyllis Diller as the eponymous heroine in the 1969-70 season. Deacon continued appearing on television and in the movies until his death.

In real life, Deacon was a gourmet chef. In the 1980s he hosted a Canadian TV program on microwave cookery, and even wrote a companion book on the subject

On the night of August 8, 1984, he was stricken by a heart attack in his Beverly Hills home. He was rushed to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where he died later that night. He was 62 years old.

(1966) Unsold pilot: Co-starred in a sitcom pilot for CBS called &quot;The Mouse That Roared&quot; that had more to do with the 1959 movie starring <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0000634/?ref_=nmwrk">Peter Sellers</a> (<a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0053084/?ref_=nmwrk">The Mouse That Roared (1959)</a>) than the original novel by <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0926728/?ref_=nmwrk">Leonard Wibberley</a>. The pilot starred <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0128377/?ref_=nmwrk">Sid Caesar</a> in multiple roles.

(12/26/69-3/26/70) Stage: Appeared (as &quot;Horace Vandergelder&quot;) in &quot;Hello, Dolly&quot; on Broadway. Also in cast: <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0226887/?ref_=nmwrk">Phyllis Diller</a> (as &quot;Dolly Levi&quot;).

(1954) In the English version of <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0047630/?ref_=nmwrk">Ulysses (1954)</a>, Deacon dubbed the voice of <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0275146/?ref_=nmwrk">Alessandro Fersen</a>, who played the physician Diomede.

Album: Appeared on the comedy album by <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0025440/?ref_=nmwrk">Morey Amsterdam</a>, &quot;Funny You Should Ask&quot; (Marsh Records).

(Summer 1965) He acted in Sumner Arthur Long&#39;s play, &quot;Never Too Late,&quot; in a Cherry County Playhouse production under the Dome at the Park Palace Hotel in Traverse City, Michigan. Ruth Bailey was founder and artistic director.

Other works

Richard Deacon

Contribute to this page

More from this person

More to explore

Recently viewed