Six years later, Dawson replaced Combs at the helm, but that lasted only one season.Īccording to the Internet Movie Database, Dawson was born Colin Lionel Emm in 1932 in Gosport, England. Producers brought out 'The New Family Feud,' starring comedian Ray Combs, in 1988. 'I never dreamed I would have a job in which so many people could touch me and I could touch them,' he said. 'I've had the most incredible luck in my career,' he told viewers. I have to do at least 30 minutes of fun and laughter and you make me want to cry.' On Dawson's last 'Family Feud' in 1985, the studio audience honored him with a standing ovation, and he responded: 'Please sit down. He was known for kissing each woman contestant, and at the time the show bowed out in 1985, executive producer Howard Felsher estimated that Dawson had kissed 'somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000.'īoth 'Hogan's Heroes' and 'Family Feud' have had a second life in recent years, the former on DVD reissues and the latter on cable television's GSN, formerly known as the Game Show Network. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him 'the fastest, brightest and most beguilingly caustic interlocutor since the late great Groucho bantered and parried on 'You Bet Your Life.'' The show was so popular it was released as both daytime and syndicated evening versions. The game show, which initially ran from 1976 to 1985, pitted families who tried to guess the most popular answers to poll questions such as 'What do people give up when they go on a diet?'ĭawson won a daytime Emmy Award in 1978 as best TV game show host. Peter Newkirk on 'Hogan's Heroes,' died Saturday night from complications related to esophageal cancer at Ronald Reagan Memorial Hospital, his son Gary said. He was 79.ĭawson, also known to TV fans as the Cockney prisoner-of-war Cpl. LOS ANGELES (AP) - Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s TV comedy 'Hogan's Heroes' and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show 'Family Feud' has died.

Family feud set 1988