Daniel Hale Rowan (July 2, 1922 – September 22, 1987) was an American actor and comedian. He was featured in the television show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, wherein he played straight man to Dick Martin and won the 1969 Emmy for Outstanding Variety or Musical Series. Early life and career Rowan was born on July 2, 1922, on a carnival train near the small town of Beggs, Oklahoma, as Daniel Hale David. He toured with his parents, Oscar and Nellie David, who performed a singing and dancing act with the carnival. He was orphaned at the age of 11, spent four years at the McClelland Home in Pueblo, Colorado, where he was taken in by a foster family at the age of 16 and enrolled in Central High School. After graduating from high school in 1940, he hitchhiked to Los Angeles and found a job in the mailroom at Paramount Pictures, quickly ingratiating himself with studio head Buddy DeSylva. A year later he became Paramount's youngest staff writer. World War II During World War II, Rowan served as a fighter pilot in the 8th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group United States Army Air Forces. He flew a Curtiss P-40N Warhawk, AAF Ser. No. 42-104949, currently recorded under civilian registration N537BR, from which he shot down two Japanese aircraft before being downed and seriously wounded in another P-40 over New Guinea. His military decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart. Comedy team After his discharge, Rowan returned to California, where he teamed up with Dick Martin and started a comedy nightclub act. Martin was originally the straight man and Rowan the comic, but it didn't work -- as Rowan recalled, Martin could never remember lines if they weren't funny. They switched roles and found steady work in nightclubs. The established team of Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall was friendly with Rowan and Martin, so much so that whenever Noonan and/or Marshall couldn't keep a nightclub engagement, they would send Rowan and Martin in their stead; Noonan and Marshall would often write material for Rowan and Martin to use. In 1958 Rowan and Martin made their movie debut in the offbeat western comedy Once Upon a Horse, written and directed by Hal Kanter. The team was regarded as promising, but no further offers for movies materialized. The comics returned to nightclubs and