Dick Gautier

Gautier started his career as a singer and a nightclub comic at the hungry i in San Francisco.^[2] He joined ASCAP in 1959 after serving in the United States Navy.^[2] In 1960, he portrayed fictional rock 'n roll star Conrad Birdie in the original Broadway theatre production of Bye Bye Birdie, receiving a Tony Award nomination for his performance.^[3] He would later appear with two of his Birdie stars in two films: with Kay Medford in Ensign Pulver in 1964, and with Dick Van Dyke in Divorce American Style in 1967.^[2]

Richard Gilbert Gautier was born in Culver City, California, on October 30, 1931.^[2] His father was a grip and his mother was a costume seamstress.^[2]

Gautier was first married to Beverly J. Gerber; the marriage ended in divorce after they had three children together. His second wife was actress Barbara Stuart,^[8] and his final marriage was to Tess Hightower, a psychologist.^[3]

His son Randy, nicknamed Rand, had both a brief stint in pornography under the name Austin Moore, and would in 1995 steal a videotape from the home of Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson, containing footage they had filmed of themselves having sex while on vacation. Rand, along with a distributor, released it on the Internet, and it became one of the first widespread celebrity sex tapes.^[9][10]

Gautier died from pneumonia on January 13, 2017, at an assisted living facility in Arcadia, California, following a long illness.^[2][3]

• Gautier, Dick (1989). The Creative Cartoonist. Perigee Books. ISBN 0-399-51434-1.
• Gautier, Dick (1993). Child's Garden of Weirdness. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-0804818254.
• Gautier, Dick (1994). Drawing and Cartooning 1,001 Figures in Action. Perigee Books. ISBN 978-0399518591.
• Gautier, Dick (1995). Drawing and Cartooning 1,001 Caricatures. Perigee Books. ISBN 978-0399519116.
• Gautier, Dick (1997). Creating Comic Characters. Perigee Books. ISBN 978-0399523519.