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Groundbreaking improv comic Jonathan Winters dies
Updated 10:03 am, Friday, April 12, 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Comedian Jonathan Winters, whose breakneck improvisations inspired Robin Williams, Jim Carrey and many others, has died at age 87.

Longtime family friend Joe Petro III says the Ohio native died Thursday evening at his Montecito, Calif., home of natural causes.

Winters was a master of improvisational comedy, with a grab bag of eccentric personalities and facial expressions. Characters such as the dirty old lady Maude Frickert were based on people Winters knew growing up in Ohio.

In the mid-1950s, "The Jonathan Winters Show" pioneered the then-new videotape technology on to do stunts like showing up as two characters on screen together.

He was introduced to millions of new fans in 1981 as the son of Williams' goofball alien in the final season of ABC's "Mork and Mindy."

source

RIP
I always liked his acts.
Too many of my favorite ntertainment people are dieing.

That's a real shame; a great talent...

He had been out of the public eye for years; I'd wondered if he might have been ill...

Laughing on the outside... crying on the inside. He mostly elected to stay out of the limelight as this and his advancing old age got the better of him. So many great comedians seem to battle their inner demons on a regular basis. At least it wasn't a suicide -- but it could have been many years ago. A crazy funny talent for sure. RIP, Lenny.

Now that you mention it Ray, I seem to recall reading a few years ago that Winters had a long time battle with clinical depression...

But he was from a generation that tried to keep that sort of thing quiet, rather than write a book about it and go on the talk show circuit....

(I'm not saying that was the right approach, I'm just observing the fact.)

You're half right, Jim...

From Wiki:

In his interview with the Archive of American Television Winters reported that he spent eight months in a private mental hospital in 1959 and again in 1961. Although he was not given a diagnosis while in the hospital, he was later diagnosed with manic depression{know known as bi-polar disorder]. The comedian referred to this incident obliquely in his stand-up act, most famously on his 1960 comedy album The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters. During his classic "flying saucer" routine, Winters casually mentions that if he wasn't careful, the authorities might put him back in the "zoo", referring to the institution.

I actually have that LP.

In a movie full of the best comedic talent of its time, Jonathan Winters stole the show in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. His comedy helped make a lot of days happier for a lot of people.

One of the best film comedies ever!



I believe everyone except Micky Rooney in this picture is dead.

I just checked "MMMMW" on IMDb and I see, with the exception of some actors in "minor" roles, that all are, in fact, dead. Yeah, I'm really not surprised, of course, with this movie being shot over 50 years ago. However, the film is so vividly etched in my memory that it feels like it was released only a short time ago.

Just as vividly I remember when I was in my HS freshman religion class, Fr. Alfred E. Smith OSA (yeah, the great ex-Gov of NY grandson,) admonishing the Hollywood studios for turning a very funny movie into filthy pornography. He pinpointed the Dick Shawn(Sylvester Marcus) scene where Marcus' scantly clad girlfriend struts around the room while he talks to his mother on the phone. Fr. Smith -- probably after viewing it many times himself -- actually forbade anyone to see the film but I had already sold my soul to the devil. I saw the movie about a week prior to his fire-and-brimstone rant. Oddly, scenes like this are common enough to be featured in "G" rated movies today.



Anyway, such an eclectic pool of talent -- great and not so great -- one by one, vaporizing into the ether, forever. C'est la vie... c'est la mort.

That woman has great legs!!!

forbade anyone to see the film

Yeah, the best way to make sure that teenage boys don't watch something is to tell them it's too lurid....

We saw it as a family in The City in Cinerama (anyone here remember that format)?