Phil Austin
- Radio
- recording
- film
- Surreal humor
- sketch comedy
- word play
Philip Baine Austin (April 6, 1941 – June 18, 2015) was an American comedian and writer, best known as a member of the Firesign Theatre.
Early life and education
Austin was born in Denver, Colorado, and later grew up in Fresno, California, attending Fresno High School. His mother was a drama teacher which influenced his upbringing as an actor.[1] He attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, because it was the most distant point in the continental United States from Fresno. He also attended Fresno State College and UCLA, but did not graduate from any of them. He was in the UCLA Drama Department at the same time as another dropout, Ray Manzarek of The Doors.[2]
Career
Radio
In Los Angeles in the late 1960s, he was one of the first apprentices for the Center Theatre Group and worked on the staff of KPFK radio in Los Angeles. At KPFK he worked with other staffers David Ossman and Peter Bergman who hosted Radio Free Oz on that station. Along with Bergman's friend Phil Proctor, they formed The Firesign Theatre.
Starting as live radio actors, the group would go on to record a series of surrealistic comedy albums that were a hit amongst an underground audience.[3] Austin played the group's best-known creation, private investigator Nick Danger. Other prominent roles were as (Happy) Harry Cox, the narrator of Everything You Know Is Wrong and Bebop Loco/Lobo on Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death. He had also served as the troupe's musician and record producer.
"It was those comments, the off-mic things, that made Phil so funny. He was the most surreal writer of all of us."
Short story writer
His collection of short stories, Tales of the Old Detective and Other Big Fat Lies, is published by Audio Editions. Two of his stories appear in the third volume of Mirth of a Nation.[4]
Record albums
Austin also wrote a solo work, Roller Maidens From Outer Space, and directed (and acted in) Eat Or Be Eaten.
Stage versions of Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers; The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye; Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him; and Temporarily Humboldt County are published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc.
Death
Austin died at his home in Fox Island, Washington, on June 18, 2015, at the age of 74. The cause of death was originally given as cardiac arrest,[1] but this was later changed to an aneurysm.[5] When he died, his wife Oona mentioned that Austin also had been diagnosed with cancer months before.[5]
References
- ^ a b c Colker, David (June 19, 2015). "Phil Austin, dies at 74; voice of Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger". The Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "The Chromium Switch Interview - Phil Austin" (PDF). Chromium Switch. Vol. 2, no. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-08-20. Retrieved 2018-01-06.
- ^ "Firesign Theatre | Credits". AllMusic.
- ^ "Phil Austin". firesigntheatre.com. Archived from the original on 2018-02-26. Retrieved 2015-06-20.
- ^ a b Roberts, Sam (June 25, 2015). "Phil Austin (a.k.a. Nick Danger) of Firesign Theater Dies at 74". The New York Times.
External links
- Phil Austin's Blog of the Unknown
- Austin's bio on Firesign Theatre site Archived 2015-07-02 at the Wayback Machine
- Phil Austin: The Man Under The Hat
- Phil Austin at IMDb
- v
- t
- e
- Phil Austin
- Peter Bergman
- David Ossman
- Philip Proctor
- Dear Friends
- A Firesign Chat with Papoon
- Nick Danger: The Case of the Missing Shoe
- Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him
- How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All
- Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
- I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus
- TV or Not TV
- How Time Flys
- Roller Maidens from Outer Space
- The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra
- Everything You Know Is Wrong
- In the Next World, You're on Your Own
- Just Folks... A Firesign Chat
- Give Us a Break
- The Three Faces of Al
- Eat or Be Eaten
- Anythynge You Want To (Shakespeare's Lost Comedie)
- Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death
- Boom Dot Bust
- Bride of Firesign
- Dear Friends
- Forward Into the Past
- Lawyer's Hospital
- Box of Danger
- Shoes For Industry: The Best of the Firesign Theatre
- Papoon for President
- Duke of Madness Motors: The Complete "Dear Friends" Radio Era
- Dope Humor of the Seventies
- Not Insane or Anything You Want To
- What This Country Needs
- Fighting Clowns
- Back From the Shadows: The Firesign Theatre's 25th Anniversary Reunion Tour
- Radio Now Live
- B-17 Bomber (voiced by Proctor and Bergman)
- Pyst