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Lawson Deming

Lawson Deming

The man who created Sir Graves Ghastly, Deming was born and grew up near Cleveland.  After college Lawson Deming worked a series of TV and radio jobs, and eventually became a regular on KYW-TV’s Woodrow the Woodsman,

starring fellow Cleveland actor Clay Conroy. Deming didn’t appear on screen, but he was the puppeteer and did voices for the show.  When the Woodrow show ended at KYW, Conroy and Deming went to WJBK/Detroit in 1966. The station had just lost its horror host “Morgus the Magnificent” (Sid Noel) the year before and TV2 asked Lawson to fill in on a Saturday afternoon horror movie slot, the Sir Graves Big Show.   Along with his wife, Lawson created the vampire character “Sir Graves Ghastly”. He wore a phony moustache and cackled out laughter, appearing with The Glob, who lip-synced parody songs, such as “I Wanna Bite Your Hand”.

The show ran for 15 seasons, but the popularity of college football, resulted Sir Graves going into hiatus in late 1982 before being cancelled in 1983.   Deming also marketed Sir Graves to Cleveland and Washington, D.C., but his biggest audience was in Detroit and Canada.  Lawson Deming died at 94 on April 24, 2007. His son David is a world renowned sculptor based in Cleveland.