This comedic kingpin, consort of the "Rat Pack", the man who brought Frank Sinatra to Ottawa for a special show in 1982. The Ottawa impressionist legend who saw showbiz "Vegas Style" was born in 1938 at our very own Ottawa Civic Hospital.

Richard Little grew up as the country crawled out of a depression. His favorite past-time was going to movies. Factoring in his mother's background in theatre it was no great stretch that he might become involved in entertainment.

By 1948, Richard was aged ten and Ottawa was beginning to have a broadcast infrastructure that could support young talent. CFRA, a station where Little would soon co-write comedy with friend Les Lye, started broadcasting in this year.

Rich¹s parents indulged their son¹s pursuits. While his father was somewhat ambivalent, his mother was more supportive. His brothers, however, good-naturedly ribbed him as a little strange, especially after passing his bedroom and hearing him talking too himself in funny voices in front of a tape recorder.

Rather than going to films, his family would watch Rich impersonate all the characters in the movies for them. He was an enormous fan of actors like Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and his all time favorite actor, Gregory Peck. He went to see Peck do his one man show and was so thrilled that he interrupted the show by getting up and imitating him during the performance. As well, he started imitating teachers at school. This made him singularly unpopular with staff.

In the late 50s Rich started doing coffee houses and got into some of Canada¹s earliest forays into television production. Little's impressions were first noticed by Mel Torme who saw his act and arranged for him to perform on Judy Garland's CBS variety series. Garland's obvious admiration of him on camera helped establish his reputation

Since then he¹s been a mainstay on television and in Vegas. He¹s toured throughout the world and his impersonations are considered the textbook definition by which others guage their abilities.

Although Little has been highly successful on variety programs and in live performances, his own television shows have had less success. Love on a Rooftop (1966), The Kopycats (1972), and The Rich Little Show (1975) were all unsuccessful in the ratings. Still, he remains popular enough to spend one-third of the year on tour with his comedy act

DID YOU KNOW?

Rich Little played Johnny Carson in the HBO film, The Late Shift. Also, after David Niven became unable to speak clearly at times due to Lou Gehrig's disease, producers asked Little to use his skills as an impressionist to provide voice dubbing for the movie Trail of the Pink Panther (1982). He followed that up by providing a voice for the deceased Peter Sellers in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).