Category Archives: Obituaries

Sorry to hear of the passing of Van Snowden, one of Hollywood's leading puppeteers. The last 30 or 40 years, if you saw a puppet on your TV and it wasn't from the Henson bloodline, there was a very good chance some part of Van Snowden was inside that puppet or manipulating it. He did a lot of the puppetry on Pee Wee's Playhouse and he worked The Crypt-Keeper on Tales from the Crypt and he handled an awful lot of puppets — many of which you couldn't tell were puppets — in horror movies — rats, lizards, odd creatures, etc. But his main gig, and it was a long one, was with my frequent employers, Sid and Marty Krofft. When they needed puppeteers, which was often, Van was the first guy they called. Here he is playing H.R. Pufnstuf in one of their shows…

I want to emphasize that that is definitely Van in the Pufnstuf outfit. He wasn't the only person who played H.R., though he did it more than anyone else and it was probably him at least 90% of the time after around 1975. But others occasionally filled the suit and it sometimes made Van uncomfy when he was asked, as he often was, to autograph a Pufnstuf photo that wasn't him. Because of that, I dug out my DVD of one of the shows we worked on and I pulled a frame grab. I know that was Van because I saw him get into the costume.

He did not do the voice of Pufnstuf (Lennie Weinrib did) and I'm not sure Van ever did the voice of any of the hundreds of characters he brought to life, either by wearing costumes or working controls. He was a very shy, quiet man. One time over lunch on a show we were doing, he mused aloud that it might be fun to play a small part without a face-hiding get-up. He had family members who knew he worked extensively in TV and movies in front of the camera but they'd never actually seen him…so we gave him a role. He did his best with it but he just felt he was doing something he shouldn't be doing so he asked us to recast…and of course, we did. The odd part of it was that he was so introverted as himself and, once you put a full-body costume on him, utterly extroverted. He could dance and emote and do cartwheels as Pufnstuf but not as Van. It was like on a stage, he could bring anything to life except himself. He was just brilliant at it, which is why he was so respected by other puppeteers and why producers who needed puppeteers always tried to hire him.

Van was born in 1939 in San Francisco and he grew up on a farm in Branson, MO. He died September 22 from cancer at the age of 71. He was one of the best.

A great comedian, Sir Norman Wisdom, has died at the age of 95. I first became aware of him, as did a lot of folks I'm sure, when he starred in (and stole) the 1968 American movie, The Night They Raided Minsky's. That led to seeing him in many of his British films and TV appearances and he was always funny…always the guy you dared not take your eyes off. I wish more of his work was available here…

Well, it's been a few hours since I posted an obit here. Character actor and comic Mickey Freeman passed away Tuesday at the age of 90. He was a comic of the Catskills variety (and often played that turf) and had bit parts in any number of movies and TV shows, mostly things shot in and around New York. We note his passing because he appears to have been the last surviving member of the regular cast of You'll Never Get Rich, also known as The Phil Silvers Show, also known as Sgt. Bilko. He played Fielding Zimmerman, a private in Bilko's platoon. Freeman didn't get a lot to do on the show but he usually managed to get at least one line in every episode. Silvers gave him the nickname, "But Sarge…" because if Freeman didn't have a scripted line that week, he'd throw that in at some point to elevate his pay to Speaking Role status. And once in a while, they gave him a good part, like in the episode where Bilko had to find a date for Private Doberman's sister. Here — watch Mickey in action…

Continuing with the sad parade of obits, superstar announcer Art Gilmore has left us at the age of 98. He may have had the "most heard" voice in the history of American entertainment, having voiced-over thousands of commercials, movie trailers, promos, radio shows, documentaries and TV shows. That alone kept him busy nearly 24/7 but somehow, he also had a decent on-camera acting career, as well. He was a very nice, important man and I was privileged to talk with him on several occasions. Leonard Maltin knew him even better and has written a far better appreciation than I could muster.

Last night after the play, before we'd heard Tony Curtis had passed away, I was telling someone a story about him. Mr. Curtis was, of course, a great movie star but there were those who said that what he wasn't was an actor. I once heard a prominent teacher of actors say precisely that, citing him as an example of someone who sought and achieved stardom and fame and fortune without ever really learning his craft. She said this to a roomful of acting students, some of whom didn't see anything wrong with that. Or if they did, it was that the limitation may have made that fame and fortune short-lived.

Anyway, I got to telling the story of what had happened when Neil Simon wrote a play called I Ought to Be In Pictures and decided that despite a total lack of stage experience, Tony Curtis was just the guy to star in it. Simon called Tony's agent, who I think was the legendary "Swifty" Lazar. Let's say it was him. Lazar said, "Neil, Tony's my client but you're my friend and my advice is not to take him. I don't think this will end well." Simon asked why. The agent declined to explain. He said, "But if you want him, I'll recommend he do it." Simon decided to take the gamble and Curtis was hired. Curtis, who'd never done anything of this sort, was nervous but excited about making his Broadway debut. He demanded and got a private acting coach to help him learn his lines and he called Simon every night to talk through the part, ask questions and mostly be reassured. Dinah Manoff was playing his daughter, by the way.

They opened with an outta-town tryout. The town was Los Angeles and it was down at the Music Center — I forget which theater. The Ahmanson, probably. Curtis was at least passable opening night and after the show, Simon went back and said something like, "You did fine, Tony. And it'll go even better once I do the rewrite." Simon was, of course, referring to the fact that once an audience sees a new show, the playwright usually rewrites whole scenes and speeches. Neil Simon is famous for doing a lot of that, including tossing out entire acts and writing new ones.

At first mention of the rewrite, Curtis paled. He said, "What do you mean? This is the show I learned. This is the show we're doing." It was explained to him but he insisted he'd learned that script and could not possibly learn changes. He was told he'd have to.

I saw the show a few nights later…apparently before they'd given him any. It was a nice, unmemorable evening — not one of Mr. Simon's stronger efforts but we were all entertained. Tony Curtis was okay in the play but Dinah Manoff was better. It was however possible to imagine Curtis would improve by the time the show got to Broadway.

That did not happen. When they began giving Curtis new dialogue, he couldn't learn it and he lost the unchanged lines. One night he went out and began ad-libbing (poorly) what he couldn't remember, getting angrier and angrier when the other actors on stage said things to him and he couldn't recall what to say in response. He began cursing them out and spewing out-of-character vulgarities and the entire first act was a shambles. At intermission, he solved the problem by getting back into his street clothes and going home…and when I Ought to Be In Pictures opened on Broadway, his role was being played by Ron Liebman.

Thereafter, Curtis concentrated on film and TV work. I didn't see everything he did, before or after, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he did something that demonstrated great ability. He wasn't bad in The Boston Strangler but for the most part, he seemed to define the difference between being an Actor and a Movie Star. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I just think it's important sometimes to recognize the distinction.

I met him briefly a couple of times, long after the stardom had cooled. Our longest conversation was at a book/photo signing and during a lull in the line, we chatted about a failed project that would have brought him back to the stage and (eventually and finally) to Broadway. It was to be a revival of the musical, Li'l Abner. He was to serve as one of the producers and to play several small roles, popping up (he explained) like Frank Morgan appearing in The Wizard of Oz above and beyond the title role. He explained to me how the deal fell apart but I frankly didn't understand it…and then people came over to ask for his autograph and he was more interested in that than in our conversation. He was very good at giving autographs, by the way. He was charming and self-deprecating and he made the signature-seekers feel they'd had a very special moment with a very special Movie Star. And when I think of him today, I think of how happy he made those people…and how happy they made him.

June Foray was pretty happy last night. She's probably pretty unhappy this morning, as are we all, to hear of the passing of animator Bill Littlejohn. Bill was more than a great artist and a great friend to June. He was a great friend of the entire art of animation and the community of folks who create it…a crusader for better working conditions, creative rights and the preservation of classic cartoons. He was also a darn nice guy.

Jerry Beck has a good career overview, better than anything I could write for this page. In an article she wrote some time ago, June Foray herself tells us a little about the man and about what he did for animation. I agree with all the praise they heap upon him.

I now have sufficient confirmation to say that comic book artist Jerry Grandenetti passed away last February 19. The Social Security Death Index lists his date of birth as April 15, 1926, which would mean he was fibbing or mistaken in interviews when he said he was born in 1927. Everything else I wrote about him is correct, including the parts about what a fine artist he was.

As I mentioned in the R.I.P. piece on political cartoonist Paul Conrad, he managed for a long time to be a Liberal voice in an increasingly-Conservative Los Angeles Times. What I should have appended was that eventually, the Times became sufficiently right-wing that Conrad was marginalized. It was all detailed in Bill Boyarsky's book, Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times. Kevin Roderick reminds us what it said.

Sad to hear of the passing of the award-winning political cartoonist Paul Conrad, who leaves us at the age of 86. This article and this one will tell you about him and show you a few of his wonderful, usually-angry graphic editorials. And check out this gallery of a few of his cartoons.

Conrad had three qualities that made him perfect for the job: He could draw, he could spot irony in all its forms and he could get outraged. Politicians infuriated him and he went after every single one who mattered and some who didn't. A staunch Liberal on most but not all issues, he was remembered most for his savaging of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon…but he was also not particularly nice to Lyndon Johnson, Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton. And he was never nastier to anyone than he was to the Mayor of Los Angeles from 1961-1973, Sam Yorty. If you're tallying his Democratic targets versus his Republicans, you'll have trouble with Yorty, who was a Democrat who always sided with the G.O.P. But really, the final score is that Conrad spared no one who was in power while he was wielding his pen.

During much of this time, his cartoons were so scathing that they seemed to characterize the entire Los Angeles Times. It's hard to tell quite where it stands these days but when Otis Chandler was in charge of the Times, it was a very Conservative newspaper in every aspect but for Conrad…and when he went after Nixon or Reagan, their supporters ignored the Times' steadfast support of both men and decried it as a Commie-Liberal-Democratic rag. That his savaging of the left went so unnoticed by outraged Nixonites seemed to amuse Conrad. One time, he was on TV with Joe Pyne, who was kind of the Sean Hannity of his day. Pyne took issue with an anti-Nixon cartoon of Conrad's and said something like, "I notice you never have anything bad to say about any Democrat." Conrad calmly responded by picking up the book he was there to plug — a book Pyne had just held up for the cameras — and displaying page after page of anti-L.B.J. cartoons. Then he said something like, "It's been obvious for some time, Joe, that you don't know how to read but I thought even you could look at the pictures."

In April of '07, I got to meet and talk with him at a local book fest. He was sitting there, sucking on an unlit pipe and scowling a bit but once we got to chatting, he was quite affable and you could sense a great, non-egotistical pride in his body of work. I asked him about his cartoons depicting Mayor Yorty as one step away from the looney bin and Conrad said he thought in hindsight, he'd been too kind to the man. Frankly, I don't think he was ever very kind to anyone except, of course, his readership. He always did right by them.

While out on a walk the other day, I received a sad and shocked e-mail from someone who thought the guy who played Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on Conan O'Brien's show had died. It wasn't until I got home that I learned it wasn't Robert Smigel who'd passed away but Robert Schimmel. So congrats to Robert Smigel for still being alive and condolences to the friends and family of Robert Schimmel.

I didn't know Robert Schimmel and didn't see nearly enough of him…but he was a very funny man with a fresh, honest way of reporting on the world. I think I even liked him being interviewed more than I enjoyed him on stage. My pal Paul Harris, who's the best interviewer on radio, has posted two audio clips of long chats he had with Schimmel and I recommend them to you. If you only have time to listen to one, listen to the second one in which he tells a hilarious — and I'm sure, absolutely true — story about his mother and a porn actor.

He also tells a story about having a colonoscopy. His doctor, he says, plays music during the procedure…so Schimmel made a funny CD for the occasion and had it played instead. It was so funny, he reports, that the doctor started playing it for his other patients. This is good to know because that's my gastroenterologist too and next time I go in for something, I'm going to demand the Schimmel soundtrack.

I can't yet find much of an obit online for her but I wanted to note the passing of Gloria Winters, who was so sweet and crushable when she played the role of Penny on the TV series, Sky King. And hey, I haven't looked to see if there is one but I'd like to find a DVD set of that show. It would probably look cheap and contrived today but I remember the performances and simplicity more than making up for that.

Ms. Winters was 78. Some news items just make you feel old.

Edward Kean, the writer behind the legendary TV show Howdy Doody, has died at the age of 85.

Mr. Kean made an amazing contribution to early television, almost single-handedly writing the popular series (including authoring many of its songs) and doing it on a daily basis. This obit will tell you all about his life but I wanted to append that Kean scripted many of the Howdy Doody comic books, as well as other kinds of Howdy Doody books for Western Publishing. In the late fifties, after Kean made the transition from Doody-writing to stockbrokering, he occasionally wrote for Western's New York office — more kids' books of a non-Doody bent, along with intermittent comics. They were the least of his accomplishments but they should be mentioned.

My father loved to Sing Along With Mitch. So did much of America. It was a very corny TV show — mostly a lot of old guys in sweaters singing songs that we all knew. But it was a lot healthier than Karaoke because unless you lived in an apartment and had real thin walls, nobody else had to listen to your rotten voice.

As a kid, I thought Mitch Miller had the easiest gig in the world. He just waved his hands and everyone else sang. You never heard him warble so much as a note. I wondered: How do you get a job like that? But then I read articles that revealed that he was a lot more qualified than he seemed to be. He was a veteran musician and record producer who'd been responsible for hundreds of albums, many of them big hits. He was into popular music when it was popular for everyone, not just the buyers between the ages of 13 and 30. And his show, though sappy at times, was easy to watch, easy to listen to.

Obits like this one will tell you a lot about what else Mitch Miller did…and they don't even get into his adventures as a producer and backer of theatrical ventures and so many other enterprises. I just liked the guy…even when I didn't know just what it was he did.

My first thought this morning upon hearing of the death of author Harvey Pekar was that it's too bad he won't be around to write the comic book about the death of author Harvey Pekar. Harvey was a fascinating guy who wrote fascinating comic books about himself. Here's an obit straight from his home town of Cleveland. In a sense, Cleveland was the supporting character in most of his stories. Harvey, of course, was the star.

I had but one encounter with Harvey Pekar in my life. It was not pleasant but in a way, it was also refreshing because it proved that the crankiness we all saw in his comics, and in appearances like those he made for a time with David Letterman, was not an act. It was just the way the guy was.

It was around 12:45 one afternoon at a comic book convention in Chicago. There was one room in which panels and talks took place and one was in progress. I was waiting in the back of the hall to moderate or maybe just be on the one that would begin at 1:00 and then Harvey was to take stage at 2. At least, that was the schedule. Quarter to one, Harvey showed up and announced — loudly, distracting all who were trying to hear the speakers — that he was ready and he didn't see why he had to wait around 'til 2:00. He wanted just to give his talk and split; never mind that the folks who wanted to hear him wouldn't converge on the room until later. He was also upset because though there was a fine, snack-laden table of refreshments for the guests, there were no donuts on it. It seemed utterly illogical to him that you could put out cookies, crackers, finger sandwiches, veggies, pretzels, chips and nuts…and not have any donuts.

Somehow, we got into an argument which all went in one direction: Harvey Pekar versus The World. Coming from anyone else, it would have been the rantings of a rude, self-obsessed guy who couldn't grasp that everything in life doesn't work the way you want it to work, just because you want it to work that way. Coming from Harvey, it was oddly reassuring and utterly forgiveable. That was just the way he was and he wasn't going to change…so you could be repulsed by it or you could relax and enjoy it. Most readers, I think, confronted his writing with those choices and opted to enjoy.

I'll bet his work remains in print for a long time. And its standout weakness will be that, like I said, he never got to write that last installment.

I am not up to the task of writing this but the passing of one of the world's great comic artists must be noted here. Victor de la Fuente, often called the master of the form in the Spanish comic art community, passed recently at the age of 83. The obits merely say it was after "long years of illness."

He was a master of realism on the comic page, especially in westerns such as Tex Willer and Les Gringos. Not nearly enough of his work has been published in English but there's much to be said for admiring the pictures he drew. Tom Spurgeon has a much better piece on the man than I am capable of writing.