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Flip Wilson

Flip Wilson

Highest Rated: 70% Uptown Saturday Night (1974)

Lowest Rated: 70% Uptown Saturday Night (1974)

Birthday: Dec 8, 1933

Birthplace: Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

The hip and irreverent Flip Wilson, who got more mileage out of wearing a dress than any entertainer since Milton Berle, made television history as the first black man to headline a hit variety show. At its height, "The Flip Wilson Show" (NBC, 1970-1974) was one of TV's hottest hours, No. 2 in the Nielsen ratings its first two seasons, and enabled its star to walk away a very wealthy man after only four seasons. Debuting not long after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy, the show cut across racial lines, clicking with people of all backgrounds. Audiences loved the musical guests--the Jackson Five, James Brown, Louis Armstrong and Lena Horne, for example--but the real draw was Wilson's comedy characters. Vamped out as the outrageous, miniskirted Geraldine, Wilson delivered lines that entered the nation's vocabulary like, "The devil made me do it!" and "What you see is what you get!" The Reverend LeRoy of the Church of What's Happening Now and Herbie, the Good Time ice cream man, were two of his other popular creations.

Highest rated movies

70% Uptown Saturday Night

Filmography

Movies

Credit
No Score Yet 30% Skatetown U.S.A. Harvey Ross (Character) - 1979
No Score Yet 50% Pinocchio Fox (Character) - 1976
70% 79% Uptown Saturday Night The Reverend (Character) - 1974
No Score Yet 22% Cancel My Reservation Self - 1972

TV

Credit
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Drew Carey Show Unknown (Guest Star) 1996
No Score Yet No Score Yet 227 Unknown (Guest Star) 1988-1989
No Score Yet 58% Saturday Night Live Host 1983
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Six Million Dollar Man Billy Parker /The Prime Minister (Guest Star) 1976
No Score Yet No Score Yet Van Dyke & Company Guest 1976
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Flip Wilson Show Unknown (Character) 1970-1974
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Bobby Darin Show Guest 1973
No Score Yet No Score Yet Here's Lucy Unknown (Guest Star) 1971
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Carol Burnett Show Guest 1968 1970
No Score Yet No Score Yet Toast of the Town Unknown (Character) 1968
No Score Yet No Score Yet Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Unknown (Guest Star) 1968