The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Jim Nabors, best known in his younger years for playing country bumpkin Gomer Pyle on two different hit TV sitcoms, and in his later years for singing — particularly at the opening of every Indy 500 — has died. He was 87. Nabors died in his home in Hawaii, his …
Before Saturday Night Live, before The Groove Tube even, Ken Shapiro was making funny faces on television with Chevy Chase when nobody knew their faces. Shapiro and Chase performed sketches together on Channel One, then on PBS as the first people seen on-air on The Great American Dream Machine, before …
Irish comedian Sean Hughes was only 24 when he won the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s top prize for his 1990 showcase, “A One Night Stand with Sean Hughes.” Hughes returned to Edinburgh this past August with friends for an improvised showcase, “Sean Hughes’s Blank Book.” Hughes broke through young, and he …
Ralphie May, a larger than life stand-up comedian who won the hearts of America if not also their votes in the very first season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, has died. May was 45. Though battling pneumonia for the past week, May continued to show up for his 2017 residency …
Joey Edmonds had an impact on the comedy world twice, first as half of the duo Edmonds and Curley, then for future generations of stand-up comedians performing at colleges across America as agent/manager of Joey Edmonds Presents. Edmonds died over the weekend. Born Joe Putzer, he grew up in Oshkosh, …
Shelley Berman, famed comedian and actor whose career spanned several decades, died early this morning at the age of 92 at his home in Bell Canyon, Calif., his publicist Glenn Schwartz told The Comic’s Comic. Berman, born Feb. 3, 1925, in Chicago, died from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease, which was the only reason …
That the French would love Jerry Lewis should surprise no one who saw him perform at his peak from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s. That Americans would mock the French for it is perhaps more surprising. For the great physicality, cartoonish faces and slapstick sound effects that Lewis used to …
All of the comedians and comedy fans who claim Richard Pryor was the greatest stand-up comedian ever have Dick Gregory to thank for that. Before Pryor or George Carlin embraced the so-called counterculture, Gregory was out there on the front lines of 1960s activism and breaking the racial barriers for …
Patti Deutsch, who started out performing in an improv group with Fred Willard, became well-known through appearances on Laugh-In, Match Game and Tattletales, and maintained a voiceover career from the 1980s through the 2000s, died last week from cancer. Deutsch was 73. Born Dec. 16, 1943, in Pittsburgh, Deutsch was …
Stevie Ryan, one of the first YouTubers to score her own comedy series on TV, has died. She was 33. Ryan, born June 2, 1984, and raised in Victorville, Calif., moved to Los Angeles at age 19 to pursue a career in show business. After booking various commercial projects, her YouTube …
