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RON CAREY (71) January 16, 2007
At 5'4" Ron Carey was perfect for playing the feisty little guy
who was mostly talk and no action. He was in several Mel Brooks movies, and had a kind of catch-phrase in "High Anxiety,"
playing a chauffeur willingly take on more baggage than he could really carry: "I got it...I got it...I ain't got it."
Born
Ronald Cicenia, the Newark, New Jersey comic had some stand-up success in the late 60's for routines about his Catholic upbringing,
and made one album. He would later play Fathe Paglia in the short-lived 1989 sitcom "Have Faith."
He
was best known for joining the cast of "Barney Miller" (1976-1982) as the brown-nosing Officer Carl Levitt, who
was self-confident most often when a criminal was safely behind bars.
He died after suffering a stroke.
He lived in Los Angeles with his wife Sharon. They were married 38 years.
RICHARD JENI (49) March 10,
2007
Following a call stating "My boyfriend shot himself in the face," police arrived
at Richard Jeni's home in West Hollywood. He was pronounced dead at a hospital, a short time later. Richard's girlfriend was
preparing a Saturday morning breakfast and heard the gunshot. Richard had been diagnosed with severe depression, totally unrelated
to his career (which was as busy as it ever was). His mental illness also included bouts of paranoia, and since he had canceled
a performance and given a large donation to charity, it's possible that he'd been considering suicide as the only way out
of an illness that was getting worse, or not responding to medication.
I remember Richard as an enthusiastic
Brooklyn wiseguy with a great deal of ambition and a great mind for comedy writing. His problem was always identity and character.
He wasn't quite the hoodlum so that "boy from New York City" tag didn't fit, at least not enough to propel him beyond
a brief UPN sitcom "Platypus Man," some indifferent supporting film roles (including "The Mask") and a
series of Showtime and HBO stand-up specials including "Crazy From the Heat" a "A Big Steaming Pile Of Me."
Born Richard John Colangelo, a graduate of Hunter College, he was an unusual combination of down-to-earth guy and intelligent
thinker.
He always had more wit and polish than the average comedy club denizen, and his guest spots on
any talk show never disappointed. His eight minutes of observations and wisecracks were always intelligent as well as funny.
He wrote comedy material for his friend Chris Rock when Chris hosted the 2005 Academy Awards. Ironically Rock was booked
for a David Letterman appearance less than 48 hours after Richard died. When asked for a comment, Chris cheerfully insisted
that if Richard was around, he'd plug the great new Chris Rock movie.
Jeni was always one of those guys
who wasn't satisfied with a joke until he worked and re-worked it, and in coming up with a good bit (like his parody of Gladiator
movies, or the lobster routine) he would still study it from all angles for maximum effect. I remember him fretting about
the punchline pronunciation of "fillet knife." Should it be fill-it or fill-ay, which was funnier, which one would
get the biggest reaction, and was there perhaps another type of knife that might be even funnier?
Richard
Jeni was a smart, dedicated comedian. Among his sardonic one-liners:
Jihad: "You're basically killing
each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend."
Family: "My mother never saw the irony
of calling me a son of a bitch."
Life: "The way I see life, it's like we're all flying on the
Hindenburg, why fight over the window seats?"
CALVERT DeFOREST (83) MARCH 19, 2007
Old
and frog-faced, with nothing much of a personality besides a kind of effeminate pomposity, Larry "Bud" Melman (as
played by Calvert DeForest) became one of the mascots that fans snickered about on the old "Late Night with David Letterman."
One couldn't be sure, as Larry interviewed a man in the street and held the microphone so that nobody could hear his question
or the person's response, whether this was an inept fool or a shrewd character comedian.
DeForest worked
for Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals until his mother died. Then, at age 40, he began to seek the acting jobs he craved. His screen
credits were sparse, but luckily they included an N.Y.U. student movie "King of the Z's," and when a few of those
students joined the staff of Letterman's show, and played the film, a comic chump was born. Writer Merrill Markoe, creator
of "Stupid Pet Tricks," dubbed him Larry "Bud" Melman.
He appeared in the films "While
The Cat's Away" (1972) and "Apple Pie" (1976), the latter featuring another Letterman regular, Brother Theodore,
and had the kind of sporadic TV commercials, novelty books and website gambits one might expect of a non-talent known for
a catch-phrase ("Suckers!") and the joke of having a peculiarly sullen and simpering Truman Capote-like face.
In
1993 when Letterman's show moved to CBS, the name Larry "Bud" Melman was deemed the intellectual property of NBC,
and so he reverted to his real name, making sporadic appearances, and sometimes (as his health began to fail) turning up only
to glower and walk off the stage. He dropped off the Letterman radar in 2003, and the bachelor's website was no longer updated
after 2005.
PARKER AND HART (Apr 15 2007, Apr 7, 2007)
In an unusual twist
of fate, the creators of "The Wizard of Id" cartoon strip died within 8 days of each other.
Johnny
Hart (b. February 18, 1931) first made a name for himself via B.C., the caveman comic strip that began its run in 1958. One
of the few multi-panel strips that maintained a solid level of joke and character comedy, it only veered into controversy
in the 90's when Hart began to indulge his Christian Fundamentalist beliefs and some intentionally non-joke offerings seemed
to unintentionally offend non-believers.
Brant Parker (b. August 26, 1920) began his art career at the
Disney Studio but turned to editorial comic strips when he worked at the Binghamton Press after World War II. He co-created
"Wizard of Id" with Johnny Hart in 1964, and for a while also drew for two other popular strips, "Out of Bounds"
and "Crock." In 1997 Parker retired and his son took over the art duties, but Hart continued to put in a day's work,
and reportedly was at work when he died. Parker suffered a fatal stroke eight days later.
BOBBY "BORIS"
PICKETT (69) APRIL 25, 2007
He did the MASH. He did "The Monster Mash" again and again, from
1962 right through Halloween of 2006. The song holds some kind of record for making the charts three different times: 1962,
1970 and 1973.
Pickett was a musician in a band called The Cordials. He also happened to enjoy doing monster
impersonations. As he recalled it in his autobiography, he and his co-writer had an easy time making their novelty classic:
"Lenny sat down at the piano and began futzing with various four-chord progressions and I stood next to the piano. Like
me, Lenny was a major horror movie fan from childhood. He loved Bela Lugosi as Dracula. He knew I had the Boris Karloff voice
pretty nailed, although in reptrospect, I feel that what I actually had was a very cartoonish rendition of that wonderful
actor's voice. In any case, we'd both seen how the audiences had loved it when I was with the group and we'd sing “Little
Darlin'” and I did the monologue in the middle of the song in Boris's voice. We agreed that the Karloff voice was
the most obvious one to tell the story. And what was the story? "Well," Lenny suggested, "Maybe the Frankenstein
monster should start a dance craze." "That's it!" I said."
The knock-off novelty song
was written in a half hour and recorded quickly. Legend has it the session pianist was a then-unknown Leon Russell. Demo'd
as a solo project, the Bobby "Boris" Pickett tune was rejected by the major labels and released by Garpax, the indie
label owned by Gary Paxton, lead singer on the Hollywood Argyles novelty classic "Alley Oop."
The
"graveyard smash" was released during the height of "monster mania," when Famous Monsters of Filmland
magazine was hot and Vincent Price was becoming a star via Edgar Allan Poe movies. Pickett tried to follow up with a Bela
Lugosi novelty, "Monster Motion" and a Christmas effort "Monster's Holiday" (later covered by Lon Chaney
Jr.) and periodically turned up with other novelty singles...none very successful.
Still, with a "medley
of my hit," Pickett parlayed "Monster Mash" into endless personal appearances and a lot of work during Halloween
season.
He died of leukemia, with his sister and daughter
attending him at a local hospital.
STANLEY MYRON HANDELMAN (77) (August 5,
2007)
Briefly popular as a stand-up nerd, Stanley Myron Handelman would turn up wearing Depression-era
clothes (sometimes knee pants and a snap-brim cap) and squinting behind his glasses tell jokes that fell somewhere between
picked on Woody Allen and irritating brat London Lee.
The usual variety shows of the late 60's booked
him, including "The Tonight Show" and "The Merv Griffin Show," but as he aged, his act had no place to
go. Following semi-regular appearances as a pushcart salesman telling woeful one-liners on "Dean Martin Presents the
Golddiggers" (a summer replacement series airing in 1968 and 1969) he was rarely seen on TV.
The
Brooklyn-born comic was often described as deadpan and offbeat, and that was pretty obvious on his lone comedy album, "Spiro
T. Agnew is a Riot," where he used his nebbishy loser voice to innacurately impersonate America's stolidly blockheaded
vice president. Somehow the ensemble cast included Vincent Price as an Agnew campaign flak.
Easy-going,
no threat to a headliner, Handelman briefly was an opening act for Frank Sinatra, but into the 70's, tended to make more money
writing jokes for others (including Rodney Dangerfield) and teaching comedy classes.
Handelman's private
life was a shambles, with his daughter complaining about her absentee relationship with him and his constant need for cash.
He was divorced four times, and also had four sons, Paul, Michael, Robert and Daniel
BRETT
SOMERS, 83 (Sep 15, 2007)
In an age of "celebrity," Brett Somers was a well known comedienne...but
not via films or stage. For most, her fame came via her many seasons on the TV game show "The Match Game," where
her arch flirtations and droll wit made her a beloved regular. She was flip but never campy, portraying the housewife scorned.
This was also the other role was known for; Blanche, the crassly quipping ex-wife of Oscar Madison on "The Odd Couple."
Brett was a natural for that part, since she was married to Jack Klugman. They never officially
divorced, but their years as a couple were confined to about twenty years, circa 1953-1973. Some years ago, Somers emerged
with a one-woman show, hoping for some of the spotlight given to Bea Arthur and Elaine Stritch. Her evening of songs and humor
one of her good notices and she was featured at Danny's, a small club on New York's West Side.
She had been
ill with stomach and colon cancer, according to her son Adam Klugman.
ALICE GHOSTLEY (81) September 21, 2007
A Tony Award-winning actress, Alice Ghostley parlayed plain looks into devastating laughter, not only creating characters
that would become part of TV history (Esmeralda on "Bewitched" and Bernice on "Designing Women") but would
influence many others as well. She was one of the stars of "New Faces of 1952" a comedy revue that co-starred a
young Paul Lynde. Many believed Lynde copied a great deal from Alice Ghostley, including a crooked grin and a sweetly sour
expression that could've inspired the Elvis Costello song line, "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused."
Ghostley's fame in "New Faces" (most especially her comic song "The Boston Beguine") led
to many supporting roles including a Tony nomination for "The Beauty Part" and a Tony for "The Sign in Sidney
Brustein's Window," the short-lived play that was to have co-starred Mort Sahl. Another early classic of Ghostley's was
her co-starring role with Kaye Ballard as one of the gruesome sisters to Julie Andrews' "Cinderella" in the made-for-TV
musical.
Ghostley became well known to sitcom audiences in the late 60's and early 70's via "Bewitched"
and again in the late 80's and early 90's via "Designing Women." The woman who grew up in Missouri and Oklahoma,
and became popular on Broadway and in Hollywood, spent her last years in declining health, living in Studio City. Her husband
died in 2003, and she was debilitated by a series of strokes and then fatal colon cancer.
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