Richard Halpern

Richard was born in New York in 1962 and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 11. He began acting in school plays, from elementary school all the way through junior college, after which he began writing and peforming comedy celebrity voice bits for the Rick Dees In The Morning Show on Los Angeles radio staion, 102.7 KIIS-FM. In 1985, he embarked on his other career as a cabaret singer. He has developed, over the years, a repertoire of the popular American songs of the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. He specializes in songs of the Tin Pan Alley era. He is billed as Mister Tin Pan Alley, specializing in the songs of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, and the other popular entertainers of the Jazz Age. He has performed his music all over the United States and is a regular headliner at the annual festivals of the International Al Jolson Society, every May. He is also the Emcee at the annual Dark Shadows Festivals, and a member of their Collinsport Players, a skit group devoted to creating comedic satires about the story-lines and characters of that popular 1960s TV soap opera. In addition to perpetuating the music of Tin Pan Alley, Richard is also an actor and voice-over artist, frequently heard on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, and in many radio and TV commercials. He also has a successful job as the TOP Austin Powers impersonator in the United States, and probably the World, being billed as the Fake Austin Powers! New Line Cinema, the Austin Powers film company has hired him to appear at the official studio party for the video/DVD release of "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" in 1999, and hired him again in 2002 to officially open "Austin Powers In Goldmember", at the Arclight Theatres/Cinerama Dome, in Hollywood. Show less «