David Frye
Bio
David was an American comedian, specializing in comic imitations of famous political figures, most of whom were based on notable Americans, including former U.S. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, and Nelson Rockefeller, and Senator Bobby Kennedy, as well as film celebrities, e.g., George C. Scott, Henry Fonda, Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Jack Palance and Rod Steiger, and media figures, e.g., William F. Buckley Jr. and Larry King.
However, as eerily accurate and subtle as his impersonations were, the comedic narratives spoken by those depicted by Frye were outrageously à propos as well as politically savvy and au courant.
In 1973, Frye’s album, Richard Nixon: A Fantasy, which dealt with Nixon’s Watergate troubles, developed marketing problems when all three network affiliates in New York City (WNBC-TV, WABC-TV and WCBS-TV) rejected commercials promoting the album, citing questions of taste. In addition, the Woolworth’s department store chain decided not to stock the record because, in their words, “some of our customers might be offended.”
Although his heyday was in the 1960s and early 1970s, when his Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson impersonations were definitive, Frye continued to create masterful new impressions and evolve old ones. His 1998 album Clinton: An Oral History featured riffs on Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Pat Buchanan, and John McLaughlin, plus that of an older Nixon (complete with pauses and phrasing more typical of the ex-President as he sounded in the 1980s and 1990s).
