By Lee Pfeiffer
David Frye, who soared to fame in the late 1960s with his devastating mimicry of Richard M. Nixon, has died in Las Vegas at age 77. Frye was an omnipresent fixture on TV variety shows especially in the lead-up to the presidential election in 1968 which saw Nixon rise from being a political has-been to being the leader of the free world after his narrow defeat of Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. Although Frye was an equal opportunity satirist, spoofing both liberals and conservatives, he was so closely associated with Richard Nixon that few remembered his other targets. Arguably, his career declined as some the figures he spoofed ended up with less-than-comical legacies. President Lyndon Johnson refused to run for re-election and emerged from the White House as a battered and embittered man, a victim of his Vietnam policy that overshadowed his often remarkable advances in social programs. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, whose speech patterns Frye amusingly linked to that of Bugs Bunny, was assassinated in 1968. President Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, and although Frye continued to spoof him, the nation was so torn apart by the lingering scandal, there wasn't much room for laughs. Nixon had emerged as a tragic figure, deserted by his most loyal supporters when the wake of his administration's legal transgressions became known. By the time he re-entered public life and regained some respectability as an elder statesman, the bloom was off the rose for Frye's impersonations of him. Lost in the midst of his political impersonations was the fact that Frye also had the ability to mimic legendary actors such as Kirk Douglas and George C. Scott. However, as the celebrities and political figures of our time diminished in stature, so, too, did Frye's popularity. Still, he gamely persevered and continued to with his nightclub act, comedy albums and videos that took on both Bush administrations and President Bill Clinton. Click here for more and to view vintage clips of Frye's act.