Karnak is correct! It’s Rodney Dangerfield, birth name Jacob Rodney Cohen.

Which leads me to admit a real DUH moment … After starting this game, I re-checked Cliff’s list, and realized Dangerfield had been used before … most likely by me! I honestly didn’t remember. Well, I can always blame the pain medication I was on while recovering from the hit & run incident. Here are the remaining clues, containing some interesting trivia:

I came to realize that what I lacked was an "image", a well-defined on-stage persona that audiences could relate to. To this end, I adopted a stage name which had been used as the name of a comical character on Jack Benny’s radio program as early as 1941.

In 1967, The Ed Sullivan Show needed a last-minute replacement for another act, and I became the surprise hit of the show.

I began headlining shows in Las Vegas and made frequent appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, and The Tonight Show.

In 1978, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at Harvard University's Class Day, an annual ceremony for seniors the day before commencement.

I released seven record albums, and one of my singles was one of the first Hot 100 rap records. The associated video was an early MTV hit.

My acting career took off during the early 1980s, playing roles such as a property developer, an abusive father, and a soccer coach. I also appeared in music videos for Billy Joel and Lionel Richie.

In 1995, I was rejected for membership in the Motion Picture Academy. After fan protests, the Academy reconsidered, but I then refused to accept membership.

I suffered a mild heart attack in 2001 while performing on The Tonight Show. Jay Leno noticed something was wrong with my movements and asked his producer to call the paramedics. During my hospital stay, the staff were reportedly upset that I smoked marijuana in my room. I returned to the Tonight Show a year later, performing on my 81st birthday.

I died in 2004, following a month in a coma due to complications from heart valve surgery.

On the day of my death, the randomly generated Joke of the Day on my website happened to be "I tell ya I get no respect from anyone. I bought a cemetery plot. The guy said, 'There goes the neighborhood!'" This joke led my wife to choose "There goes the neighborhood" as the epitaph on my headstone.

I was born on April Fools Day (April 1) of 1883, in Colorado Springs.

Both of my parents were deaf, which contributed to my becoming skilled in pantomime -- a skill which would prove useful later in Hollywood, when I launched a career in silent movies.

I died of throat cancer in 1930; my son then followed in my footsteps by beginning a lifelong career in film acting of his own (even changing his own first name to match my own).

Buster Keaton?

Not Buster.

In the early days of Hollywood, actors generally did their own makeup, and this turned out to be something I excelled in so greatly that I became famous for my breathtaking makeup wizardry.

To directly quote Wikipedia (because I cannot say it any better myself), I was "regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for [my] characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and [my] groundbreaking artistry with makeup... often portraying disguised and/or mutilated characters."

To directly quote myself: "I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice. The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals."

Trying to think of silent era film stars whose children continued in the film industry. John Barrymore?

Not Barrymore.

My son continued in somewhat similar roles, many of them even more monstrous than my own, and again often reliant upon heavy and elaborate make-up jobs (albeit now created and applied by Hollywood makeup departments).

We shared the same stage name. To exploit the name recognition and box-office mystique/appeal, the studios soon started billing him as "XXX Junior," and I subsequently came to be referred to (post-mortem) as "XXX Senior."

I think I've got it now: Lon Chaney? (Whose son was Lon Chaney Jr.)

Bingo — Chaney it is!

Senior is perhaps most remembered as the title characters in the original silent versions of Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Junior is best known for The Wolf Man, but also had turns as the Mummy, Count Dracula, and Frankenstein’s Monster.

You’re up again, Arthur!

Love those old films in wonderful black and white, with superb use of light and shadow, intriguing plots, great acting & directing, and incomparable orchestral music scores.

I was born in Chicago on October 30, 1939. My parents, of Norwegian/Swedish and American descent, met while they were both students at the University of Washington, and later married.

We moved around a bit when I was young, finally settling in Palo Alto, California in the early 1950s.

I had a passion for art since I was a child, but in the early 1960s, while living in San Francisco, I also started composing music, including a contribution to a short film.

John Williams

Not Mr. Williams.

Despite being situated in the growing musical center of San Francisco, I only half-heartedly considered music for a profession until, in 1965, I watched a psychedelic rock band performing at a nightclub.

As a result, I formed my own musical group which included two of my relatives. The band made its debut performance at a seedy but popular bohemian hangout called the Coffee Gallery.

This venue was always populated by romantic visionaries, spaced-out poets, and boozing locals. Small no wonder then, that I composed a song which attempted to convey the hallucinatory effects of psychedelic drugs.

My band recorded several tracks under the supervision of Sylvester Stewart (better known as Sly Stone). I supplied vocals, guitar, piano, and recorder.

Frank Zappa?

Marty Balin

During the autumn of 1966, a prominent San Francisco-based band’s singer decided to leave, and I was asked to join them. I later stated that I joined the group because it was run in a professional manner, unlike my own band.

Paul Kantnor

My first album with the new band included two of my own compositions, both of which became top 10 singles. We soon became very popular, and this made me a key figure in San Francisco's early psychedelic music scene in the mid-1960s.

Grace Slick of course. I bet a lot of these came in simultaneously with the last few clues.

You got it, Foolsnobody! Cliff came very close with Marty Balin and Paul Kantner.

These were my remaining clues, followed by a bit of personal history.

Like many others in the hippie days, we used LSD, marijuana, and many other mind-altering substances. Later in life I publicly acknowledged my alcoholism and drug use, discussed my rehabilitation, and commented on these experiences in my autobiography.

In 1968, I sang a song in blackface on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and ended the performance with a Black Panther fist. And during an appearance on a 1969 episode of The Dick Cavett Show, I became the first person to say "m….f…." on television.

In 1971, I was nearly fatally injured when the car I was driving crashed into the inside of a tunnel in San Francisco. This happened while I was drag racing a colleague and both of us were driving over 100 miles per hour.

After two of our musicians decided to form their own band, I continued my project with other bandmates, and also began a string of solo albums. One of those albums -- which incorporated ideas I encountered attending twelve-step program meetings -- was nominated for a Grammy Award.

During the 1980s, when I was the only remaining original member in my band, we released an album which sold double platinum (2 million), and went on to score three chart-topping singles. Despite our success, I eventually left the band.

In 1989, following a reunion album and tour, I retired from the music business. During a 1998 interview with VH1, I said that the main reason I retired was that "All rock-and-rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire."

After retiring from music, I began painting and drawing. In 2000, I began displaying and selling my artwork, frequently attending my art shows across the United States.

In 2006, I suffered from diverticulitis. After initial surgery, I had a relapse requiring further surgery and a tracheotomy. I was placed in an induced coma for two months and then had to learn to walk again.

Famous as a rock 'n' roll singer, I was one of the earliest female rock stars alongside my close contemporary Janis Joplin, and was an important figure in the development of rock music in the late 1960s. My distinctive vocal style and striking stage presence exerted influence on other female performers, including Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith, and Terri Nunn (of "Berlin" fame).


SIDE NOTE: Here’s Grace Slick with Starship, singing a song I co-wrote which appeared on their 1985 double platinum-selling album Knee Deep In The Hoopla, and which was also on the B side of their #1 single, Sara: