The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Harry Anderson, best known for starring in the NBC Must-See TV sitcom Night Court from 1984-1992, has died at his home in North Carolina. He was 65. Born Oct. 14, 1952, in Newport, R.I., Anderson and his family moved to Chicago, where he discovered card games, magic tricks and hustling. …
Floyd J. Phillips grew up in Michigan and died there, but his comedy influence also spread to the Pacific Northwest. Phillips died April 6, after more than 35 years on and off of dialysis. He’d posted a GoFundMe just last month to try to defray his medical expenses and help …
Mitzi Shore, the legendary owner of The Comedy Store who took over the comedy club when she divorced Sammy Shore in 1974, mother of Pauly Shore and three other children, a lightning rod for the comedy strike of 1979, godmother to so many other comedians in the 1970s through the …
Charles John Thomas “Chuck” McCann delighted children for decades, first on local New York City television, then nationally, and finally in animation. McCann died on April 8 from congenital heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 83. Born Sept. 2, 1934, in Brooklyn, McCann made his name on …
Peggy Platt, the first and so far still the only woman to have won the Seattle International Comedy Competition, died in her sleep earlier this week. Platt was 58. She won the Seattle competition back in 1985, and in the following three decades, served as a den mother for the …
Tim Jones, a regular at The Comedy Store throughout the 1980s comedy boom and into the 1990s, has died. Jones, a native New Yorker, headed west to Hollywood like many comedians in the 1970s. On the East Coast, he’d been a news writer for a local NBC station. “I wanted to …
Mike Allan MacDonald joked onstage that he was “the King of Canadian Comedy,” but to many in Canada, he was royalty. Unlike the other great comedians to come out of Canada, MacDonald stayed. He stayed ’til the end, dying Saturday from heart complications. He was 63. 62 according to his …
He wasn’t from Boston, but Barry Crimmins accomplished more in the 1970s and 1980s to make the metropolitan area an artistically and financially profitable hub for comedy than any comedian, booker or club owner. He wasn’t Nicaraugan, but Crimmins traveled there to perform for the Sandinastas and rail against then-President …
Goodbye dere. Marty Allen died on Monday in Las Vegas, from complications from pneumonia. Allen was 95. He was a favorite both on TV and in Vegas casinos for decades as the wild-eyed comedy partner of Steve Rossi. I spoke with Allen three years ago for his 93rd birthday. He …
Joe Recca, was a social worker, a black belt, and according to his website, “The Funniest Man in Clean Comedy!” Recca died last week in Baltimore. No further details were released. Born in Chicago and raised in Virginia Beach, Recca graduated from Norfolk State University in 1986 with a degree in …
