Career
He wrote an entertainment column for the Bay Area Reporter. He stood 6-feet-5 in his heels and considered himself "a stand-up comic in a dress," relished startling tourists with one-liners at Finocchio"son To the American television audience, Shannon was best known for portraying female impersonator Beverly LaSalle in three episodes of the Columbia Broadcasting System sitcom All in the Family.
The episodes in which he appears are "Archie the Hero" (1975), "Beverly Rides Again" (1976), and "Edith"s Crisis of Faith, Participant 1" (1977).
Shannon died of a heart attack at the age of 45 at Mission Emergency Hospital in San Francisco on February 13, 1984.
