Following his discharge from the merchant service, he began pursuing a comedy career using the stage name Dickie Dawson then, he revised his alias to Richard Dawson, the name which he later legally adopted. During 19, he made several passages on the RMS Mauretania from Southampton to ports of call, including Nassau, the Bahamas Havana and New York. Īt age 14, he ran away from home to join the British Merchant Navy, where he pursued a career in boxing, earning almost $5,000 in shipboard matches. In a radio interview with Hogan's Heroes co-star Bob Crane, Dawson recounted how this experience severely limited his school attendance, stating that he attended school regularly for only two years. His brother, John Leslie Emm, who was five years older, and he were evacuated as children during World War II to escape the bombing of England's major port cities in the south. His father drove a moving van and his mother worked in a munitions factory. 2.1 Comedy and variety artist in the UKĬolin Lionel Emm was born in Gosport, Hampshire, England, on 20 November 1932 to Arthur Emm (born 1897) and Josephine Lucy Emm ( née Lindsay born 1903).