That's me at a party just a few months ago, posing with a lovely man named Henry Gibson. I am not quite as large as I seem in this photo. Henry was a very small man (but only physically) and every time I saw him, he seemed to get smaller. Had the shrinking not been due to age and illness, it would have just made him cuter. As it was, he was already a wonderful plaything.
Back when the original Laugh-In was on, I used to go over to NBC, sneak in and watch them tape. Henry was an unflappable pro who was always good, take after take, and you could tell he was much loved by the crew and his fellow cast members. Years later, there was a period in his acting career when he always seemed to be cast as a Nazi or a White Supremacist, and it really was a case of casting against type…because he was the nicest man you could ever want to meet.
In the eighties, I developed a cartoon series for Disney called The Wuzzles (based on a line of toys) and I had to figure out what to do with all these characters. There was one named Eleroo who was half-elephant, half-kangaroo, and since some of the other Wuzzles would be kinda obnoxious, I decided to just make Eleroo the sweetest, most likable character I could. I probably didn't give it a lot of thought — not that I ever give anything a lot of thought — but when I wrote the character breakdown for Eleroo, I wrote, "Let's get someone like Henry Gibson to do his voice. Better still, let's get Henry Gibson."
They got Henry Gibson and he was just a joy. He was such a good actor, crawling into every nuance of every line, wringing every possible drop of personality out of it and adding plenty of his own. Eleroo instantly became the most beloved Wuzzle of all those working on the show, and a script I wrote to spotlight him — it was called "Eleroo's Wishday" — was easily my favorite episode. Because of Henry.
No one disliked the man…or if you did, there was something wrong with you. The above photo was taken when he was telling me about an autobiography he was writing, asking me to jot down some thoughts about that show and mail them to him. I did…and got back a charming, unnecessary "thank you" note. I sure hope he finished the book and that it gets published because I'd like to spend a little more time with Henry Gibson. Here's a link to an obituary. He was 73 and the cause of death, yet again, was cancer.