Actor-musician-comedian (he did just about everything) Greg Lewis passed away this morning — peacefully, I'm told — after a long stay in post-hospital convalescence. If you're old enough to remember some of the great variety acts of the past, you may remember the world-famous Jerry Murads Harmonicats and The Harmonica Rascals starring Little Johnny Puleo. They appeared on every variety program back when there were variety programs including The Ed Sullivan Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Merv Griffin Show and The Mike Douglas Show. Greg was a part of both groups starting with the former at the age of 15.
Later, he was an actor, mostly of the comic kind, on shows like The Bob Newhart Show, Love Boat, Night Court, Everybody Loves Raymond and How I Met Your Mother and he always seemed to be busy. One of his big accomplishments late in life was an autobiographical one-man show called Some Greeks Are Not in the Restaurant Business which brought him great acclaim.
I have no idea what he died from or precisely how old he was. I just know that he was a fellow member of the group Yarmy's Army, that he was in show biz all his life, that he did a zillion different things in that biz and that he was a very nice, funny man.
P.S. ADDED SOMETIME LATER: Greg's daughter Anastasia informs me Greg was 88 years old, having been born on April 21, 1935 and the cause of death was heart failure.