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American screenwriter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rifael Ronald "Riff" Markowitz (born 1938) is a Canadian-American television and theatre producer,[1] most recently the managing director, MC and co-founder of The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies,[2] which performed at the historic Plaza Theatre in downtown Palm Springs, California until 2014.
Markowitz was born in New York City but grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[1]
He ran away from home at the age of 15, worked as a clown for a year, then secured a job as a radio announcer on CJKL in Kirkland Lake, Ontario.[1] He later moved into television with CHCH-TV in Hamilton, producing several of the station's early forays into television syndication, including The Randy Dandy Show,[3] The Hilarious House of Frightenstein,[3] and Party Game.[3]
He was also a television personality, both as the titular Randy Dandy in The Randy Dandy Show and as announcer "Gardiner Westbound" on Party Game.
He was also a producer on The Wolfman Jack Show,[4] creator and executive producer of the HBO TV series The Hitchhiker,[1] and a cofounder of the early Canadian pay television movie channel First Choice.[1]
He moved to Palm Springs in 1991 intending to retire, but his continuing interest in theatre led to the offer to restore a vaudeville theatre, which became home to The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies.[5]
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