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Here’s a story from TMZ about the connection between Flip WIlson and one of the Supremes.

Flip Wilson was discovered by Johnny Carson and Redd Foxx.

The Flip Wilson Show appeared on NBC, Thursday nights at 8:00 from September, 1970 until 1974 . It was one of the most popular and successful variety series of the Seventies.

People tuned in for Wilson’s hilarious monologues , ad-libs, and for skits where the host would appear in drag to portray sassy ‘Geraldine,’ a wise-cracking smarty with an unseen boyfriend named ‘Killer.’

The show featured no regular supporting players – just Flip Wilson and his guests on a stage set in the center of a live audience. This gave the show a more intimate feeling and put the focus purely on the stars and the comedy.

This series played host to the biggest musical and comedy performers of the early seventies -  John Wayne,Dean Martin, Lucille Ball, , Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson and almost every other major star was a guest on the show during it’s run.

The show was the number-two rated program (after All in the Family) in the nation for the first two years it was on the air – and a  top twenty show when it left the air.

The Flip Wilson Show was the only primetime series to feature musical guests like Issac Hayes, James Brown and The Temptations.

Because of changing tastes and an evolving media , The Flip Wilson Show was the last  television variety show  to be successful as a venue for one star. 

When the The Flip Wilson ended in 1974 Flip turned up as a frequent guest on  other variety shows of the time. Lean times followed.

Flip Wilson led an intensely private life.

He was rarely seen on network television after his series left the air.

If the man was driven, it was because of tough times in the past and a hard struggle through the black nightclubs of the fifties. “With all the trouble black people have,” he once stated. “They try to forget on weekends. You’ve got to be good to make them laugh.”

Flip’s rules of comedy – “Be sudden, be neat. Be unimpassioned. If you’re serious about something, leave it out.”

Insiders speculate that  a comeback attempt , a pilot may have been shot but the series never got off the ground. The show would have been a new Flip Wilson Show for the fall of 1978, either a Jack Benny style variety / sitcom or a comedy set in World War II.

A well-publicized 1981 arrest for cocaine possession was thrown out by the California Supreme court.

In March of 1984, Flip  hosted a daytime game show on NBC called People are Funny. It lasted four months.

A year later, Flip Wilson turned up (sporting a Hitler-style mustache) as the star of a family sitcom called Charlie and Company, a Cosby Show rip-off that lasted only a few weeks.

He retired from show business to pursue his spiritual interests and enjoy hot-air ballooning and long ocean cruises.

Flip Wilson died in November, 1998 in his Malibu home from liver cancer. He was 64.

• Flip Wilson’s birth name: Clerow Wilson Jr.
• Born December 8, 1933 in Jersey City, New Jersey, he was one of 18 children. Died November 25, 1998.
• Made the cover of Time Magazine and was named ” TV’s first black superstar”.
• At 16, lied about his age and joined the United States Air Force.
• In 1954, Wilson worked as a bellhop in San Francisco’s Manor Plaza Hotel.
• Wilson was a favorite guest on The Tonight Show, Laugh-In, and The Ed Sullivan Show.
• Wilson got his own television program on NBC in 1970, The Flip Wilson Show.
• He greeted all his guests with the “Flip Wilson Handshake,” which started with hand slaps and progressed to hip-bumps.
• His characters included Reverend Leroy, pastor of the Church of What’s Happening Now; and Geraldine, whose line “The devil made me do it” became a national expression.
• The show aired through 1974.
• Wilson won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor In A Television Series.
• Also won a Grammy Award in 1970 for his comedy album The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress.
• From 1985 to 1986,  played the lead role in the CBS sitcom Charlie & Co.
• One of Wilson’s best-known jokes ended with the line, “And maybe we can find a “banana for your monkey.”
• Wilson was married and got a divorce. After winning custody of his children in 1979, he performed less in order to spend time with his family.
• Wilson is one of very few celebrities to become an FAA certified Hot Air Balloon Pilot. Before becoming ill he was an active lighter-than-air pilot.
• He died from complications due to liver cancer in Malibu, California, at the age of 64.
• The popular phrase, ”What You See Is What You Get”  was often used by Flip’s Geraldine character and inspired researchers at PARC and elsewhere to create the acronym WYSIWYG, pronounced “wissywig” .  A computer coding term  that means “What You See Is What You Get” — (instead of seeing code, you see exactly what you typed.)

Here is Flip Wilson on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” telling his famous joke. Notice how Carson cracks up.