Jay Johnson

Early Life

Jay Johnson grew up in Richardson, Texas, after being born in the small town of Abernathy. He showed an aptitude for ventriloquism around age 11, and by high school he was performing in public and even landed local television commercials with an early figure named Squeaky. He was also president of the theater club at Richardson High School, an early sign that his interests ran toward performance generally, not just the technical side of vent work.

Television

Johnson's most famous role came on the ABC sitcom Soap, where he played Chuck Campbell alongside his dummy Bob. The joke of the character was structural: Chuck treated Bob as a fully independent person, and Bob's voice carried a rude, combative streak that regularly got the pair into trouble. The bit worked because Johnson played the split with a straight face rather than mugging it for laughs.

After Soap ended, he kept working steadily in guest and recurring roles rather than chasing another lead. He appeared on The Love Boat, Gimme a Break!, Simon & Simon, The Facts of Life, Dave's World, and Empty Nest, the last of which reunited him on-screen with his former Soap father Richard Mulligan. In 1990 he starred in Stephen J. Cannell's Broken Badges as a police officer who was, notably, also a ventriloquist. He returned to the Chuck-and-Bob pairing briefly in 1999 for a That '70s Show closing-credits bit that referenced Soap directly, and later took a darker turn playing a ventriloquist confronting a dummy with a mind of its own in an episode of Mrs. Columbo. Other later credits include Reno 911! and an episode of CSI in which he played the father of a recurring villain.

Live Theater

Johnson's largest achievement outside television was Jay Johnson: The Two & Only!, a solo show he wrote and performed that traces his lifelong relationship with ventriloquism. It ran off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company before opening on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre on September 28, 2006, and also toured to venues in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles. The show is built around a cast of his own ventriloquized characters, including Bob from Soap, and is explicitly dedicated to his mentor Arthur Sieving, who built his first professional figure.

The production earned Johnson the 2007 Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event, along with the New England Critics Award for its Cambridge run and a 2006 Ovation Award for Best Solo Performance in Los Angeles. He is credited as the only ventriloquist to be nominated for or win either a Tony or an Ovation Award. A film version was shot in 2012 at Thalian Hall in Wilmington, North Carolina, directed by Bryan W. Simon, who had earlier profiled Johnson in the documentary I'm No Dummy. The original Bob figure used on Soap now sits in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, and Johnson performs with a replica for The Two & Only! and other live appearances.

Figures

• Squeaky—
• BobArthur Sieving

Timeline

• 1979 — Hosted the game show Celebrity Charades.
• 1983 — Hosted the series So You Think You Got Troubles.
• 1990 — Starred in the Stephen J. Cannell CBS production Broken Badges as ventriloquist police officer Stanley Jones.
• 1999 — Reprised Chuck and Bob Campbell in a That '70s Show closing-credits sequence referencing Soap.
• 2006 — Jay Johnson: The Two & Only! opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre after an acclaimed off-Broadway run at the Atlantic Theatre Company.
• 2007 — Won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event for The Two & Only!; the original Bob figure was added to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
• 2012 — The Two & Only! was filmed at Thalian Hall in Wilmington, North Carolina, directed by Bryan W. Simon.

On video

14 performances cataloged in our archive. needs research: curate + embed the best 5–8; the rest 301 here