Category Archives: Obituaries

Just wanted to note the passing of actress Betty Garrett at age 91 and to say I always thought she was a talented, classy lady. She was a staunch supporter of live theater in L.A. and for a time, it seemed like every play I went to, I'd find Betty Garrett in the audience if not on the stage. Everyone revered her for her skills but also for the kind of person she was — friendly, approachable and willing to talk or advise anyone. She had an amazing career…a couple of them, if you note that the blacklist stopped the first one and forced her to pretty much start all over.

I think the last time I saw her perform was a production of My One and Only mounted by the Reprise! group up at U.C.L.A. She played a role usually played by a short black guy and stole the show, especially with a soft shoe dance routine near the end. Of course, she was a much younger woman at the time she did this. She was only 86.

I heard her talk on a few occasions…mostly about her late husband Larry Parks, who became a star playing Al Jolson, then saw his career and life destroyed by the House Un-American Activites Committee. His crime? Being Liberal, she said…and in those days, that was a felony. She was still a bit amazed that she'd overcome all that to not only work again but to work so much…and on two of the most popular TV shows of all times, All in the Family and Laverne & Shirley. Still, the sense of triumph was incomplete because Larry had not lived to see it and experience his own. She also talked with great pride and enthusiasm about her days in M.G.M. musicals. How great was it to be a part of that?

Such a lovely woman. I'm glad we had her around as long as we did.

I have occasionally mentioned here that I had the best plumber in the world. I did and now, sadly, I don't…though I may again. Let me tell you about my friend, Bobby the Plumber…

Thirty-some-odd years ago, I had plumbing needs. A new house means new emergencies. I went eenie-meenie-minie-mo with the Yellow Pages and called a big company. They sent out someone who fixed the problem and charged me a lot of money. A few weeks later, I had another problem. I called a different company at random and they sent out someone who fixed the problem and charged me a lot of money. And so on it went for a few years. The plumbing in the house I'd purchased needed a heckuva lot of plumbing.

The fifth or sixth plumber I got from a big company via the rear of my phone book was named Bobby. Nice guy. He fixed the problem and charged me a lot…but while he was here, he fixed a number of other things and didn't charge me. He was the first one of those guys I felt really gave me my money's worth. Naturally, I made a special point of writing down his name and telling him I'd not only henceforth ask for him but that I'd send friends his way. And while he was here, I asked him for an estimate of what it would cost to put a new sprinkler system in my front yard.

He did the measurements and math, then told me the following: "Well…if I do it or any other plumber the company sends out does it, it'll cost around $2500. If my brother-in-law and I come out and do it on the weekend and you pay us directly, it'll be a thousand." Guess which option I chose. The following Saturday, Bobby and a couple of guys came out and put in a new sprinkler system. And while he was here, he repaired a perennially-gurgling toilet and a leaky spigot and a few other problems at no charge. In fact, some of what he did involved undoing what earlier plumbers had done and fixing those problems the right way.

Three weeks later, he called and asked me if he could come by and see me. I couldn't imagine why but I told him to come on over.

That day, he sat in my office here and said, "I've been thinking of leaving this company and going off on my own. I don't feel right about the way they insist we do business." He ticked off a list of practices that if they weren't illegal were at least a bit sleazy — like charging customers $75 for a part that cost two bucks or telling them they needed an expensive drilling-out of roots in their sewer lines when it wasn't necessary or when the problem could be handled another way for a lot less. He said he felt like an accomplice to a crime when he did that kind of thing.

Since he'd worked for me, my referrals to friends had generated several work calls…all from writers. One of them had told him that I'd posted a message on the then-active, since-defunct Writers Guild Bulletin Board System that I was then operating. That had gotten him some business and each job had led to other calls to his company and requests for Bobby. He was wondering: If he did go off and start his own company, could I spread the word? He wasn't sure but he thought it might be possible that he could make a go of it just through one satisfied customer telling another.

And he did. For around thirty years.

He rarely advertised. He was so good and so honest that one customer told two others and each of them told two others and so on. He said that two-thirds of his calls came from writers or folks in the animation business, and that he could usually trace the referral through one or more referrals back to me. I take zero credit for that. Obviously, it had everything to do with the satisfaction — in some cases, the delight — of his clients.

This is not to say he pleased every one of them. I heard from a few who felt he'd overcharged them or not fixed something properly. Several even yelled at me or at least complained because the guy I'd recommended hadn't lived up to his billing, they felt, as The Best Plumber in the World. In two of those cases, I heard enough to know the customer was in the wrong. In one or two others, I called Bobby and he immediately went back and made things right.

I'll tell you how much I trusted this guy. When something was broken here, I'd call him and he'd hurry over and fix it and I didn't even ask for an estimate or a price in advance. If it was a small thing, he'd sometimes do it for nothing or just for the cost of materials. If it took some time, he'd charge me about a third of what any other plumber would charge. Once, I tried to pay him more than the amount on his bill and he refused to take the check. He tore it up and said he would only accept one for the proper amount.

Here's an even better story. One time during a Garfield recording session, I overheard Gregg Berger (voice of Odie and others) telling his wife on the phone, "Well, I guess we have no choice. Tell the plumbers to go ahead." I asked him what was up. He said his new home needed a new sewer line installed from the house to the street and it had to be done before Christmas Day when large masses of relatives were arriving. That was about 90 hours away. The best estimate he'd received was $6000 and he'd been warned it could run higher than that…and they might not finish on time.

I said, "Trust me. Cancel them and hire my guy. You don't even need to get an estimate. If it's anything over six grand, I'll pay the difference."

Gregg did as he was advised. Bobby and his crew went out and worked day and night, sometimes digging by lantern-light until the wee, small hours. They finished up Christmas morning an hour or two before the family arrived.

Total cost? $3,000 and he apologized it was that high. Gregg tried to write the check for more but as with me, Bobby wouldn't take it.

I have a dozen more stories like that. I also had him do work on my mother's house and one time he called me and said, "I'm in her neighborhood. Does she need anything done?" I said no, her plumbing was fine. He said, "No, I mean does she need anything? Light bulbs changed? Trash cans taken out?" When was the last time your plumber volunteered that kind of service and for free?

That man, Robert Gomez Jaramillo, died the other day. Funeral services are on Tuesday.

I can't tell you how sad this makes me and not because I no longer have The Best Plumber in the World. I might still. Bobby's son has taken over the family business. In fact, he did one job recently for me because his father had been hospitalized with a stroke, and the work was done with same efficiency, skill and honesty. The son is named Robert (Junior) so I may still have a Bobby the Plumber and so far, he looks to be living up to his father's example in every way. (For those of you who live in Los Angeles and might need a great plumber: I'll post contact info in a few days.)

I just liked Bobby. I liked his integrity. I liked his attitude. I loved the fact that he was able to stay busy just because one customer told another. He was a great guy and I'm not the only person who feels that way. While I was writing this, Marv Wolfman called and I told him the sad news. He recalled that Bobby recently performed a major rescue on the Wolfmanor out in the Valley when a pipe broke. Marv had raved to me at the time at how Bobby (Senior) rode to the rescue and saved a lot of the property and got everything working again. Marv's neighbor saw the skill and dedication and immediately hired The Best Plumber in the World to work for him, as well. That was how Bobby made a living. One satisfied customer always led to another. I wish more businesses were good enough to operate like that…and that everyone I ever hired was as nice as Bobby Jaramillo.

And another funny man has died. There was a time when David Frye was the uncontested king of political impressions. His Nixon was the one to beat and I don't think anyone ever did. Nor could they top his Lyndon Johnson, his George Wallace or (especially) his William F. Buckley. That he could replicate the voices was not as impressive as the way he could somehow scrunch his face and shoulders to make himself look like the person he was doing.

He told others that it was only about the face and expression with him; that he spent very little time trying to learn anyone's voice. If he could get the face right, he would automatically sound like the person. His modus operandi required a mirror for practice. If he worked a club that didn't have a dressing room with a mirror, he could be found before his performance in the men's room, rehearsing in front of the one they had in there. And if there wasn't one available to him, he was likely to walk out and go home.

In his jacket pocket, he always carried photos — usually torn sloppily out of newspapers — of the people he did. Once on The Merv Griffin Show, Merv unexpectedly asked him to do his Al Capp impression and Frye froze up. He couldn't do Capp out of nowhere so he turned away from the camera as much as possible in a seated position, pulled a wad of photos out of his pocket and began riffling through, looking for Capp. Puzzled, Merv asked, "What are those?" And Frye, a bit embarrassed, muttered, "I look at pictures of them."

Then he found his Al Capp photo, locked onto the face and instantly turned into Al Capp. It was a bit scary at times. No other impressionist could crawl inside his subjects quite as thoroughly…but no other impressionist seemed like he was utterly possessed by them.

I can't fully explain why his career took such a plunge in the late seventies and eighties. This obit suggests it was because he couldn't survive the loss of Nixon and L.B.J. as primary targets. Maybe…but others came along who were as ripe for mocking and Frye didn't rise to those occasions. I suspect it was something deeper within him, coupled with a decreasing marketplace for impressionists. Mimics like Rich Little, Frank Gorshin and John Byner all managed to work often as character actors…but David Frye only did imitations.

Back in this posting in 2006, I wondered what had become of him and told a story of a bizarre encounter with the man. This led to a brief follow-up here. I would end this by saying, "He will be missed" but I think he already has been…for years.

Here's a short clip from The Ed Sullivan Show that David Frye himself apparently put up on YouTube. It's a bit out of sync but then so was he…

Such a funny man…dead at the age of either 83 or 86 depending on which obit you read. This one says he was 83. I usually don't go for comedians who make funny faces and silly noises but there was something gloriously manic about Charlie Callas…and he was always just a wee bit out of sync with reality. It was like life had filmed him against a green screen in another dimension and matted him into this one.

Want a quick sample? I was on the set of The Tonight Show when this was being taped. I wish you could have seen how hard Mr. Carson laughed. Everyone laughed, including the band. You had to be really funny to get Johnny to laugh like that and even funnier to get the band to laugh as it did that day…

Jack LaLanne, who pretty much invented the TV exercise show and much of the entire fitness industry, died yesterday at the age of 96. He lived his life as a walking billboard for exercise and nutrition. The above photo was reportedly taken when he was 71 years old and I can believe it. Up until around when he hit 85, he would do some outrageous physical feat every year on his birthday…like swimming from San Francisco to Alcatraz, towing the entire city of Oakland. Or something like that. I always found him a little annoying but in a good way. He made a darned good living off his industry but I'll bet he also, directly or indirectly, put a lot of extra years on folks' lives. When you hear reports that Americans are living longer…well, that's because most people take better care of themselves. And a lot of them take better care of themselves because of a movement that Jack LaLanne helped popularize.

So I guess I have to tell my Jack LaLanne story. I only have one. It took place about ten years ago at the Musso-Frank Grill, a venerable restaurant up on Hollywood Boulevard that was founded in 1919…when Jack LaLanne was five years old, let's note. One evening, I was dining there with my friend Carolyn Kelly and our pals Marv Wolfman and Paul Dini. We were in one booth, Jack LaLanne and some folks were in the booth next to us and we shared a common waiter.

We were perusing our menus and I think it was Paul who asked the waiter what Mr. LaLanne was having. The waiter replied, "The sanddabs. Mr. LaLanne always comes in on Thursday evenings and has the sanddabs. He just loves our sanddabs."

We were still perusing about two minutes later when Mr. LaLanne and his party got up to leave. Jack would have been around 86 but you could tell he was in good shape. He had on one of those body suits with short sleeves, and then you can't tell where the shirt ends and the pants begin. I think this was the first time I ever realized how short he was…about 5'6", I'd guess.

He paused to slip the waiter a tip, handshake-style, then he turned to us, still sitting there with our menus up. He announced, "Whatever you order, you'll love it. Everything here is great!"

I was sitting on the end, right next to him. Just to make trouble, I said, "Yeah, the waiter told us we should try anything except the sanddabs. The Board of Health just made them stop selling them due to some sort of pollution."

Jack LaLanne did a "take" that would have been considered overacting on The Benny Hill Show. A look of horror struck him…and I think he would have run for the men's room and induced vomiting if he hadn't seen us all laughing and realized he'd been had. And what did he do in response?

He hit me.

I have witnesses. Jack LaLanne swung and punched me right in the shoulder, laughing as he did. It didn't really hurt, although it probably hurt a little more than it would have from any other man his age. I can't say for sure. Apart from this one time, I've never been struck by an 86-year-old bodybuilder.

Anyway, that's the story and the point of it, I guess, is that I'm a smartass and Jack LaLanne was a good sport. I only regret that I didn't get to tell him how much I respected his work and all that he did to make fitness fashionable. But then he probably would have figured I was just complimenting him so he wouldn't keep hitting me.

Sorry to hear of the passing of Del Reisman, a fine writer-producer whose credits included The Twilight Zone, Rawhide, Bracken's World, The Lieutenant, The Untouchables, Little House on the Prairie, The Streets of San Francisco, Kung Fu, Lou Grant and so many others. If you watched TV between about 1960 and 1983, you probably enjoyed a lot of Del Reisman scripts. Del was active in the leadership of the Writers Guild of America West, which is where I got to know him and serve with him on committees, and he was President of the WGA from 1991 to 1993. He was a calming voice of sanity through some rough times.

I love the Guild but in my days of service, I often found it dysfunctional in ways that come to mind when I watch the news these days. With only occasional exceptions, Writers worship the principle of Free Speech and will bend over backwards to see that no one's is infringed. At times, this has led to the idea that every member (there are 20,000) must have the opportunity to bitch and rant and scream to their heart's content. With a membership that far exceeds the number of available jobs, you also have a lot of folks in the WGA who aren't getting the careers they want or believe they deserve…and some of those people have a tendency to blame their union for that.

On several occasions, I watched in awe as Del quietly dealt politely with such complainers and put out fires. It wasn't part of any paying job but he believed in the Guild and he believed in the "brotherhood" (and sisterhood) of Writers and he brought great — I'm going to use the word again — sanity to situations that were in dire need of that elusive commodity. I respect the hell out of anyone who serves the WGA and I especially respected the wisdom and volunteeerism of Del Reisman. And he was a damn good writer, too. Here's the WGA obit.

One of the great announcers of all time, Fred Foy, has left us at the age of 89. Foy was best known as the announcer of the Lone Ranger radio program and TV show. He was not the first man to narrate the radio show but he did it forever and his is the voice that its fans remember. Many years later, he was the announcer for The Dick Cavett Show when it was on ABC.

That does not begin to describe the length and breadth of this man's career…the thousands of commercials, promos, trailers, other radio shows and movies on which his voice was heard. Here's a link to an obit which will give you a little better idea, though even it falls short.

Sorry to hear of the death of comedian Steve Landesberg. He was 65 and had been battling cancer for some time.

Most folks probably knew him because of his recurring roles on sitcoms like Barney Miller and The Golden Girls, and he was great on those shows. I remember him as a stand-up comedian at the Comedy Store in the seventies. They'd introduce him and he'd saunter up to the stage looking very rumpled and easy-going. The character he played on Barney Miller was pretty much him playing himself.

Like many comics, he'd put a little tape recorder on the stool and start it recording — "in the unlikely event that I ad-lib anything worth ever saying again." Then he'd launch into his act and the most extraordinary thing would happen. All the other comics, the ones milling around in the back by the bar, would stop and listen. They'd stop talking to each other about girls and agents and potential bookings and they'd stop and pay attention and show respect as Landesberg performed. They didn't shut up for very many other comedians and usually not guys on the way up…but they watched Steve and studied and I imagine a few wondered, "How does he do that? Just being himself like that."

It certainly wasn't that they were expecting anything new. Everyone who spent more than a few nights at the Comedy Store knew Landesberg's entire act — the joke about how everyone in Hollywood is writing a pilot, shooting or a pilot…or is a pilot. There was also his redneck character complaining about a new song he'd heard on the radio — "Spittin' on the Flag." ("Most disgusting song you ever heard. Catchy, though.") There was his dissection of Barry White lyrics. But mostly there was Steve. In an arena of backstabbing and egos and Industrial Strength Schadenfreude, he was amazingly unresented. No one thought he wasn't funny. No one thought he wasn't a fine fellow, deserving of all those jobs he got.

For some reason, I always ran into him in delicatessens in the Valley — sometimes, Art's; sometimes, Jerry's. He was always cordial. Always easy-going. Always funny without showing the slightest note of trying to be funny. It's a shame to lose a guy like that.

Adrienne Roy, who created color designs for most of DC Comics' top comic books for more than two decades, lost a year-long battle with cancer on December 14. She was 57 years old.

A native of Verona, New Jersey and a Magna Cum Laude fine art graduate of William Patterson University, Adrienne was active in science-fiction and Star Trek fandom before she became one of the first female comic fans to break into the ranks of New York comics professionals. She initially assisted her then-husband, DC Comics staffer Anthony Tollin, with his freelance color work before she moved (rapidly) to working on her own. Before long, her work was seen on Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Warlord, The New Teen Titans, House of Mystery and many other titles but she was most often associated with the DC books featuring Batman. Amazingly prolific — and often specifically requested by artists — she was at one point the only DC freelancer with her own desk in the company's Manhattan offices. She was also the first colorist signed by the firm to an exclusive, multi-year contract.

Her long tenure on Batman (more than 600 issues of various comics featuring the character) meant that her credit appeared on more tales of the Caped Crusader than anyone else except for Bob Kane. "Adrienne made it easy to take her for granted because she was quiet, pleasant, reliable — never any fuss with her — and her work was always exemplary," former Batman editor Dennis O'Neil recalls. "It's only in retrospect that I realize what a blessing she was to my editing."

She lived her final years in Austin, TX, and is survived by her daughter Katrina Tollin, her brother Normand Roy and her former husband and art partner, Anthony Tollin. She is also survived by more than 50,000 pages of colorful comic book storytelling featuring the World's Greatest Super-Heroes. I always liked Adrienne and am saddened (but given her recent health, not surprised) by this news.

Longtime comic book artist John "Jon" D'Agostino died this morning at his home in Ansonia. Jon was born in Italy on June 13, 1929 but his family moved to America when he was a lad and Jon attended the Industrial School of Art in Los Angeles. He broke into comics as a colorist for Timely Comics, which is now known as Marvel, and soon became head of their coloring department for several years. He was skilled in a wide range of crafts and worked over the years as a penciller, a letterer and an inker, primarily on humor material. The bulk of his pencil and ink work was done for Charlton Comics in the fifties and sixties, and for Archie Comics in the years since. He also worked intermittently for Marvel on their Star (children's) line of comics but occasionally on super-hero and adventure books including G.I. Joe and Marvel Two-in-One. He also did many uncredited assists of other artists. He and his friend Joe Sinnott, for example, often assisted each other.

One of Jon's most notable credits was the lettering for Amazing Spider-Man #1 in 1963 and he lettered several other stories for Stan Lee during this period, some of which were credited to "Johnny Dee." At the same time, a letterer named John Duffy lettered a few stories for Marvel. This has led many to assume John Duffy was another pseudonym for Jon D'Agostino. This is not so. Jon D'Agostino was not John Duffy. He also was not Tony D'Agostino, a prominent Italian cartoonist who was no relation.

As mentioned, the bulk of Jon's work in recent years was for Archie Comics, primarily as an inker. He had a slick, organic style that made Betty and Veronica cute and human. I only knew Jon via an occasional phone call but I followed decades of diligent hard work that went too often unnoticed. He was a quiet, dedicated professional who did fine work for well over half a century.

There was a time when, if I'd told you the number one film comedy star in America would soon be Leslie Nielsen, you'd have had men with nets come and get me. Mr. Nielsen was the serious (too serious) star of TV shows like Bracken's World and The Bold Ones, and movies like Forbidden Planet and Tammy and the Bachelor.

But as it turned out, Mr. Nielsen had a wonderful, largely undisclosed sense of humor. Folks who knew him knew it but the public didn't. As I learned the few times I met him, that sense of humor was vast and rich, though it did have a special flair for fart gags. At the time, he was apparently never without a little plastic cylinder called a Handi-Gas. This is (or was — I don't think they still make them) a noisemaker that could emit the sound one is apt to make after a major feasting on Van Kamp's Pork and Beans followed by a Chili Malted. You kept the Handi-Gas casually concealed in your hand and then you squeezed it at just the right moment, simultaneously making some sort of body movement to suggest that the sound came from your orifice. (It would probably be simpler to just fart but that wouldn't be much of a trick now, would it?) The idea, I guess, was to see how much you could embarrass people around you by making them think you'd embarrassed yourself.

Or something like that. I'm not big on fart humor but I found Leslie to be a very funny gent in spite of his ominpresent Handi-Gas. I especially liked the deadpan way he'd carry a joke to the wall in Airplane or the "Naked Gun" movies. And I really enjoyed the short-lived TV series that came between them…Police Squad. I was working on another ABC show at the time and I witnessed a curious occurrence: Everyone at the network — or at least, everyone I knew — was simultaneously saying, "Boy, that's a funny show" and "God, we've got to get rid of that thing as soon as possible." The initial ratings were pretty bad but somehow, I guess because it was so different, there was an inexplicable urgency to terminate the series. It was like they had to get it off the schedule immediately…and they did.

An agent I knew whose firm represented Nielsen told me that, at least on a financial basis, it was the best thing that could have happened to him. If it had just been a successful TV show running a few seasons and then being cancelled, that's probably all Leslie N. would have done for the rest of his career. As it was, its cancellation led to the "Naked Gun" movies and their high grosses led to him being offered a steady stream of leads in comedy films, often for huge sums of money. He struck me as a man who was very, very happy with the bizarre left turn his career had taken.

Breck Wall, who logged thousands of performances in his bawdy revue, Bottoms Up, has died at the age of 75. Wall got his big start as an entertainer in Dallas where he worked occasionally for nightclub owner Jack Ruby and became a close friend. Ruby placed a phone call to Wall the day before he shot Lee Harvey Oswald and Wall later visited him in jail. This led to Wall testifying before the Warren Commission and to some conspiracy theorists concocting elaborate, evidence-free scenarios that suggested the performer was somehow involved in the killing of Oswald and/or John F. Kennedy. (New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison at one point considered Wall a prime suspect and then, as Garrison did with so many of his prime suspects, inexplicably dropped all suspicions.)

In 1964, Wall took his show — a collection of risqué (and low) comedy sketches and scantily-clad showgirls — to Las Vegas. Over the years, Bottoms Up moved from casino to casino, occasionally seeking asylum in Reno or Laughlin for a time or touring. Sometimes, it was an afternoon show — one of the first in Vegas. Sometimes, it went on at 3 AM. Mr. Wall always seemed to find some showroom to take him in and his last Vegas stint ended in 2007.

I saw the show in Laughlin around 1988. It was a stripped-down version with a cast of six or so, playing in a nearly-empty showroom, but Wall and his crew worked hard. There were blackouts and little dance routines, and the main "comedy" (note the quotes) involved Wall prancing about on stage dressed as a Muppet-like aging lady stripper with grotesque, flapping breasts. I didn't like the performance but I admired the effort and the energy. I later spotted Mr. Wall at a bar in the casino and on a whim, went over and introduced myself. He was delighted to meet a "fan" and ecstatic when he found out I was in the entertainment business…whereupon I just sat there for an hour and enjoyed Vegas anecdotes. As you might imagine, he had tons of them and they were all a lot more interesting than the show I'd just seen.

Our conversation was interrupted from time to time by reports from the maître d' of the showroom. Wall and his crew were waiting around to see if there was going to be a second show that night, which was contingent on a certain amount of tickets being sold. Since there'd only been about ten folks in the hall for the first show, I wondered what the magic number was. Whatever it was, they just barely made it so he excused himself to go to prep and I headed back to my room at another hotel. Like I said, I admired the effort and the energy. That's the roughest kind of show business and Breck Wall managed to make a go of it for more than forty years. Here's a little video sampler of one of the last incarnations of his revue…

A long, courageous battle against the Big "C" was lost yesterday by Michelle Nicastro, a woman of lovely voice and spirit who was prominent in the L.A. theater community. Michelle recorded several CDs of show tunes, mostly kid-oriented, that are quite wonderful in every way. I had the pleasure of hearing her sing in person many times and meeting her and…well, I think if you listen to her sing, you can tell what a sweet, wonderful lady she was. Here she is singing "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid….

There you go. Ever hear any person sing that song better than that? I sure haven't.

(I kinda knew that when I came back to post on this weblog it would be for an obit. I'm really sad that it had to be for Michelle…)

Longtime comic book inker Mike Esposito has died at the age of 83. In the above photo, which I took at a mid-seventies New York comic convention, Mike is the gentleman on the right. The fellow on the left is his good friend and frequent co-inker, Frank Giacoia.

I wish I'd also taken a photo of Mike with his best friend and more frequent collaborator, Ross Andru. Ross and Mike were lifelong friends dating back to high school, bonding over their mutual desire to become professional cartoonists. Esposito got serious about it after his discharge from the Army in 1947 when he attended the (then) newly-formed Cartoonists and Illustrators School run by Burne Hogarth in New York. Andru was also a student there — one of the best, as evidence by the fact that Hogarth hired him to assist with the art on the Tarzan newspaper strip. In the meantime, Esposito began to get work as a penciller and an inker for Fox Publications and Timely Comics. In 1951 after Andru's Tarzan job ended, he and Esposito decided to team up and try to establish themselves as comic book publishers. Mikeross Publications did not last long but it produced one highly memorable comic — Get Lost!, which was one of the first and best imitations of Harvey Kurtzman's new comic book, MAD.

Thereafter, Andru and Esposito became primarily an art team for other publishers. Ross pencilled and Mike inked…and since Mike's end of it went faster than Ross's, Mike also picked up work inking other artists. They worked for most of the major houses but became best known for their long association with DC, particulary with editor Robert Kanigher, for whom they did Wonder Woman, Metal Men and hundreds of war comics. Later for DC, they drew Superman, The Flash and dozens of other features. During the sixties, Esposito began inking for Stan Lee at Marvel, working under the pen name "Mickey Demeo" so DC wouldn't find out. He inked almost every comic they published then and almost every penciller but especially stood out when handling Jack Kirby pencils (or layouts) on The Hulk and John Romita pencil art on Spider-Man. Eventually, Esposito did so much for Marvel that he began using his real name…but he also inked many comics under the name "Joe Gaudioso" and there were others. His friend Ross joined him at Marvel and they collaborated on Spider-Man and other strips. Andru passed away in 1993.

Mike was a jovial, dependable gent who was trusted by editors and liked by his peers. In the seventies, he gave assisting work to a number of young artists, helping them to learn the industry and gain a foot in the door. He was also a good friend to other inkers, always ready to aid a colleague with a deadline problem. For many years, friends tried to persuade him to travel to San Diego to be honored and interviewed at the Comic-Con International but he always declined, citing health problems and a reticence to fly. I'm sorry we never got him to make the trip because I think he would have been surprised and overwhemed to learn how many fans he had.

Alex Anderson, an animation storyman who created Rocky & Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right, has died at the age of 90. I must admit that I don't know a lot more about him or his work with his friend Jay Ward than is contained in this obit but I felt his passing should be noted here. Thanks to Steven Silver for letting me know about it.