A lovely, talented man died this morning in his native Texas. Larry Hovis was one of those people who could do anything: Sing, dance, write, act, produce. He was also an artist and handyman. When I knew him back in the seventies, his hands were like sandpaper from the work he was doing with wood and metal in a home workshop.
Larry was born February 20, 1936 in Wapito, Washington but he grew up in Texas and always considered it his home. At age seven, he and his sister had a "kid act" singing and dancing on local radio and at state fairs. When he got too old for that, he put in several years in a vocal group (including an appearance on the TV show, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts) and went on to a fruitful career in musical theater, mostly in and around Texas, while he went to school. Soon after he nailed down a degree in Philosophy at the University of Houston, he was "discovered" by Capitol Records, recorded a few songs for them, then moved to New York. There, he appeared in The Billy Barnes Revue and in a short-lived flop — a revue called From A to Z starring Hermione Gingold and featuring sketches by Woody Allen. That was in 1960. By 1963, Larry had relocated to Los Angeles where he landed the recurring role (two episodes) of Gilly Walker on The Andy Griffith Show. This in turn led to a recurring role in the spin-off show, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and then a tour of duty on Hogan's Heroes as the hapless Sgt. Andrew Carter.
When Hogan's Heroes went off, Larry didn't miss a beat, moving over to become a regular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. During this time, he also began to write for variety shows and other comedians, and to delve into the producing of game shows. For most of the seventies, he bounced around between several careers — writing, producing game shows (Liar's Club, for one) and doing guest spots on TV shows. Whenever he could, he also got back into musical theater. I saw him give a wonderful performance as the TV crusader, Melvin P. Thorpe, in a touring company of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
In 1989, Larry was hired to produce a TV show called Totally Hidden Video for the then-new Fox network. It was supposed to be a TV show where unsuspecting people were caught in pranks but a small scandal erupted. The claim was that the camera was not "totally hidden" and that some of the "victims" were actors who were paid to pretend they were caught. I had lost touch with Larry by then so I never heard his side of it but a mutual friend told me that Larry had "taken the fall" for others. Disgusted by the whole experience, the friend said, he had decided to leave television and move back to Texas. There, he wrote, performed in and directed plays, and taught Theatre at Texas State University in San Marcos.
I didn't know Larry that well but we worked on a few projects that never went anywhere, and I could tell he was a very bright man, and just as nice as he came across on TV. I remember that a friend of his was then struggling to hold onto a disc jockey job and had called to ask if Larry had any joke books that could help raise the humor level of the broadcasts. Larry sat down and spent a whole weekend writing fresh (and very funny) material for his friend and just told him, "Send me a few bucks if you get renewed." On the Liar's Club game show, Larry was both the producer and one of four celebrity panelists. The panelists had to give funny "bluff" answers to questions, all of which Larry wrote, and he made a point of never saving the best jokes for himself. He was a fine, generous human being and I'm sorry to hear there's one less of those in the world today.