Among other venues, Frye performed at colleges and nightclubs across the country as well as on television programs such as the “Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”
He reached the height of his popularity doing exaggerated impressions of Nixon, with his shoulders hunched and face bowed down. He also devoted several albums to Nixon before Nixon resigned as president in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal.
Born David Shapiro in 1934 in Brooklyn, Frye also imitated such political and entertainment figures as Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, William F. Buckley, Walter Cronkite, Kirk Douglas and Howard Cosell.
He recorded the albums “David Frye Presents the Great Debate” in 1980 and “Clinton: An Oral History” in 1998, but never again saw the level of fame he achieved in the Nixon years.
