Painter, photographer, performer, architect, author, key member of the Surrealist movement, and… game show participant. Aside from his contribution to art history, Salvador Dalí has a canon of memorable moments – the time he almost suffocated after turning up to give a lecture in a full diving suit and accusing Yoko Ono of attempting to perform witchcraft with his moustache hairs. Even in death, Dalí makes headlines. One of his more underappreciated milestones was on an episode of the TV show What’s My Line? which aired in January 1952.
The show’s format featured regular people with odd jobs, such as a weight lifter, a giraffe handler, etc, who were asked yes or no questions by a panel of blindfolded celebrities. In a season special, Dalí was wheeled on, signature moustache and all, to be asked things like, “Would you possibly reach the front page of the newspaper?” and “Do you imagine we are blindfolded because one or more of us would recognise you at sight?” Almost everything is a yes, and understandably as the panellists become increasingly frustrated – and the audience hysterical – one proclaims, “There’s nothing this man doesn’t do!” Watch the archive clip in all its brilliance above.
