TV Obits: Jones, Tuttle, Mitton, Purchase, MacNeil, Asinof
A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.
- Charlie Jones: He was a veteran sports announcer, best known for announcing football games on ABC and NBC from 1960 to 1998. He also worked on the Olympics, soccer matches, college football, tennis, figure skating, and other sports. He died of a heart attack in La Jolla, CA at age 77.
- Mark Tuttle, Sr.: He was a writer and producer who worked on many TV shows over the years, including The Beverly Hillbillies, Three’s Company, Petticoat Junction, The Facts of Life, Life with Lucy, The Harvey Korman Show, The Tim Conway Show, and 227. He died at age 73.
- David Mitton: He was a co-creator of the children’s show Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends. He died of a heart attack in London at age 69.
- Bruce Purchase: He acted in many TV shows, including Doctor Who, Callan, The New Avengers, Blakes 7, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, and I, Claudius, as well as movies such as Richard III, David, and Another Life. He died at age 69.
- Neil MacNeil: He was a host of the 1960s PBS show Neil MacNeil Reports and later a commentator on Washington Week in Review (now called Washington Week). He was also a reporter for Time magazine and author of several books. He died of lung cancer at age 85.
- Eliot Asinof: He wrote for several TV shows, including Maverick, Climax, Cain’s Hundred, and Goodyear Television Playhouse, and appeared on several ESPN documentaries and authored the classic book Eight Men Out. He died of pneumonia at age 88.
Carol Burnett Cohort Harvey Korman Dies
Harvey Korman was always goodif not better than mostfor a laugh.
The Emmy-winning actor, best known for his rib-tickling antics on The Carol Burnett Show and one of Mel Brooks’ favorite go-to funnymen, died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center. He was 81.
According to the hospital, Korman died of complications from an abdominal aortic aneurysm that ruptured four months ago.
While his most memorable film role had to be his turn as the overly sensitive Hedley Lamarr in Brooks’ classic Western spoof Blazing Saddles, it was Korman’s work in parody sketches such as “Went With the Wind” and “As the Stomach Turns” during his 10 years on The Carol Burnett Show that made him a top comedian.
Korman, a former Navy man who couldn’t make it on Broadway but had comic timing to spare, won four Emmy Awards while on the show.
“Carol is absolutely devastated,” said Burnett’s personal assistant, AngieHorejsi said. “She loved him very much.”
In the late 1990s, he and Carol Burnett costar Tim Conway teamed for a successful traveling act, Tim Conway and Harvey Korman: Together Again, that lasted until December, with the septuagenarians performing up to 120 dates a year.
“I don’t know whether either one of us was the straight man,” Conway told the Los Angeles Times Thursday. “The most important thing in comedy when you’re working together is for one guy to know when to shut up. And we both knew when to shut up; quiet show, actually.”
In addition to Blazing Saddles, Korman appeared in the Brooks films High Anxiety, History of the World: Part I and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
“A world without Harvey Kormanit’s a more serious world,” Brooks said. “It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we’d crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh.”
But aside from his “dazzling” comedic talent, Brooks said, “Harvey was such a good solid actor that he could have done Shakespearean drama just as well and easily as he did comedy.”
Over the years, he made dozens of guest-star appearances in TV series such as ER, Roseanne, The Love Boat, Perry Mason and Burke’s Law, and showed up in a number of films, including two of the Pink Panther sequels and the big-screen adaptation of Gypsy.
Korman is survived by his wife Deborah; daughters Kate, Laura and Maria; son Chris and three grandchildren.
Harvey Korman dead at 81
This seems to be a very active week for celebrity deaths, and it’s sad to report that Carol Burnett Show veteran Harvey Korman has died at age 81. He died of a ruptured abdominal aneurysm at his UCLA Medical Center.
Besides The Carol Burnett Show, where Korman teamed for a ton of great sketches with Tim Conway (often cracking each other up), Korman appeared in many other shows since the early 60s, including ER, Ellen, Perry Mason, Route 66, The Red Skelton Show, Dennis the Menace, Hazel, Jack Benny, Gidget, The Lucy Show, The Munsters, The Wild, Wild West, F Troop, and many others. He was a regular on the sitcom Mama’s Family and did the voice of The Great Gazoo on The Flintstones. Movies that Korman appeared in include History of the World, Part 1, High Anxiety, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Blazing Saddles, Son of Flubber, Gypsy, and others.
Do you ever get the feeling that all of the great classic stars and performers are dying and it’s going to be a very different world in a couple of years? Rather depressing.