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Tim Conway Delivers Laughs Without An Apology
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When he was young, Tim Conway says, his dyslexia made people laugh.
"I thought, 'Well this is a good way to make a living,' " he tells Weekend Edition host Scott Simon at a recent taping of the public TV series Backstage With... "I'll just go downtown and read and have people laugh."
Conway says he was destined to become a comedian.
"When you're small, you either are funny or you get beat up a lot," he says.
Conway's career stretches from sitcoms in the 1960s to a dozen Disney films and 11 years on The Carol Burnett Show. He is the voice behind Barnacle Boy on SpongeBob SquarePants, and last year he won his sixth Emmy for a guest spot on 30 Rock.
Now 78, he still looks a bit like a bank clerk -- short, bald and bespectacled. But he continues to make people laugh and is currently on tour with a stage show.
Conway says he's not capable of doing anything else. He enjoys being funny -- a clean, family-friendly kind of funny.
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"I avoid all the language and nudity and violence and everything," he tells Simon. "I have enough of that at home."
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