Will Durst sidelined by stroke

Please send some thanks and gratitude to comedian Will Durst this Thanksgiving.

His wife, comedian Debi Durst, revealed that Will has been hospitalized and unable to perform since suffering a stroke on Oct. 7.

“Will has never lost the ability to speak or communicate, and he jokes with his nursing staff every day,” Debi Durst told The San Francisco Chronicle. “One day this week he asked one of them if she would be so kind as to fetch him a beer.”

Will Durst’s biweekly column, “Durst vs. Durst,” has not appeared in The Chronicle since his stroke.

The 67-year-old also will have to cancel his appearances in his 27th annual “Durst Presents: The Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show XXVII.” The shows will go on as scheduled without him, in a different Bay Area venue each night from Dec. 27 through Jan. 5, 2020. Diane Amos, Dan St. Paul, Larry “Bubbles” Brown, Michael Meehan and Barry Weintraub will alternate guest appearances in place of Durst.

“He’ll still be leading the comedy caravan,” says Debi, “but he’ll be doing it from his hospital bed.”

We wish him a full recovery.

Read more at The Chronicle.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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