| 70 Reasons to Celebrate his 70th Birthday |
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| 1. The Dimpled Smile 2. The High Energy Level 3. His Bright Mind 4. His Versatility 5. His Ambition 6. His Wit and Humor 7. His Love for Children 8. His Warmth and Sensitivity 9. His ability to put people at ease 10. His perfectionism and attention to detail 11. His practicality and business sense 12. His enthusiasm and drive 13. Ran off to see the world at age 14 14. Played at The Palladium less than a year after beginning his stand-up comedy career 15. Raised his two sons alone 16. Sent his Ex-Wife flowers every year on her birthday 17. Racy Tracy Rattigan's Bird Call routine 18. The Hogan's Heroes opening credits where Newkirk offers the cards to you 19. Newkirk jumping down off the upper bunk 20. Newkirk speaking French with a Cockney accent in The Scientist 21. The picnic scene in Tanks for the Memory 22. Newkirk holding the chimp in Monkey Business 23. Always on the contestant's side (both Match Game and Family Feud) 24. Fair and unbiased toward all contestants 25. Did so well at the "Audience Match" on Match Game that they installed a wheel to keep contestants from choosing him (His name came up the first time they used it) 26. His Brett Sommers impression 27. The "School Riot" episode of Match Game 28. The "September" episode of Family Feud 29. The Ring 30. The Pocket Watch 31. The Botany 500 suits 32. Married a Family Feud contestant (Now that's a "Parting Gift"!) 33. The "Love" hand sign 34. The wink to the viewers at home 35. Kissed all female contestants, even the ones with bad breath (Per interview) 36. Wore hats given to him by contestants, no matter how silly 37. Always gave the contestants a few words of encouragement before the "Fast Money" round 38. Dedicated a Family Feud episode to an ill little girl named Nichole 39. Family Feud episode where the winning family picked him up off the ground 40. Family Feud episode where a contestant revealed that his grandmother had done a Novena (Catholic ceremony) to help Newkirk escape from prison 41. Family Feud episode where he had been flirting with an older woman contestant and saying that he was planning to marry her. Finally she replied, "Talk is cheap, Richard. I want to know when!" 42. His 1985 Farewell Speech 43. Kissed a little girl's doll on the 1994-95 Family Feud 44. His "Family Food" routine with the Muppets 45. His stirring rendition of "Hey, hey, we're The Monkees" 46. The laugh where tears would come to his eyes 47. Any of his various accents 48. Used a Scottish-Canadian accent in The Devil's Brigade (As opposed to plain Scottish) 49. Wore a kilt with great style 50. His Maltese Falcon imitations (Almost the entire cast) 51. His talent for playing Ego Maniacs 52. Named the Password Grand Master in 1975 53. Would have made a great Tonight Show host 54. His hysterical self-satire in The Running Man 55. Cut his own hair 56. Quit smoking "Cold Turkey" for his daughter 57. Still sends out autographs 58. "The gen'le rine from 'eaven", Newkirk correcting Crittendon's Shakespeare with an especialy strong Cockney accent 59. Hogan: "Say goodbye to the nice Colonel." Newkirk: "Goodbye, nice Colonel" 60. Newkirk talking to Klink's safe: "Hello, you chubby little rascal. It's me again. The nice man with the warm 'ands and the short finger nails." 61. "Double bloody charming!" 62. "A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square" 63. "The main thing is, as long as you love your Mum, isn't it?", from The Dating Game 64. "Antipasto" 65. "I was really hoping for a Longines.", his Emmy acceptance speech 66. "And the survey says...." 67. Something people do to try to stay young? Contestant: "Go to night clubs." Dawson: "That's how I got old!" 68. Something that's difficult to get into? Contestant: "A girdle." Dawson (who had gained weight): "A year ago, I couldn't have told you whether that was a good answer or not." 69. "Only in a rerun.", from The Running Man 70. Newkirk: "It's really nice to know, though, that when I'm 70 that I'm gonna be wildly attractive to women. S'pose when you've got it, you never really lose it, do you?" |
| Compiled by the members of the Richard Dawson Fan Domain November 20, 2002 |