Richard Dawson ✝

Richard Dawson (born Colin Lionel Emm; 20 November 1932 – 2 June 2012) was a British-born American actor, comedian, game-show host and panelist in the United States. Dawson was well known for playing Corporal Peter Newkirk in Hogan's Heroes, as a regular panelist on Match Game (1973–1978), and as the original as well as third host of Family Feud (1976–1985, 1994–95). Colin Lionel Emm was born in Gosport, Hampshire, England, on 20 November 1932 to Arthur Emm (born 1897) and Josephine Lucy Emm (née Lindsay; born 1903). His father drove a moving van and his mother worked in a munitions factory. He and his brother John Leslie Emm (five years older) were evacuated as children during World War II to escape the bombing of England's major port cities in the south. In a radio interview with Hogan's Heroes co-star Bob Crane, Dawson recounted how this experience severely limited his school attendance, stating that he attended school regularly for only two years. At age 14, he ran away from home to join the British Merchant Navy, where he pursued a career in boxing, earning almost $5,000 in shipboard matches. During 1950 and 1951, he made several passages on the RMS Mauretania from Southampton to ports of call, including Nassau, the Bahamas, Havana, and New York. Following his discharge from the merchant service, he began pursuing a comedy career using the stage name Dickie Dawson; he later changed his alias to Richard Dawson, which he eventually adopted as his legal name.