Jonathan Winters, 1925–2013

Fearless comedic improviser Jonathan Winters could conjure up hilarious routines off the cuff, often by calling on a range of wacky characters, from sharp-tongued grandma Maude Frickert to no-nonsense football coach Piggy Bladder. Jack Paar, who gave Winters his big break on his 1950s chat show, once said, “If you ask me who are the funniest 25 people I know, I would say, ‘Here they are: Jonathan Winters.’”

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Winters was a lonely child who spent hours in his room talking to himself and creating a “repertory of sound effects,” said The New York Times. After serving as a Marine gunner on an aircraft carrier in World War II, he won a talent contest in 1949, which led to a job as a morning disc jockey on an Ohio radio station. “He made up for his inability to attract guests by inventing them,” pretending for example to be an Englishman whose blimp had crashed in Dayton. In 1953 he headed for New York, and was soon making regular appearances on shows hosted by Paar and Steve Allen. By 1956 he was showing off his “gallery of characters” on his own NBC variety show.

Winters fell prey to his demons “at the height of his success,” said NPR.org. Struggling with depression and alcohol, he checked himself into a mental hospital in 1959. The day he checked out, eight months later, he was offered a leading role in the madcap comedy classic It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He “didn’t think he was up to it”—but his wife told him, “Take it or you’ll never work again.” He did. It was the first in a series of movie roles in the 1960s and ’70s.

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But television remained Winters’s true medium, said HollywoodReporter.com. He was a frequent guest during the 1970s and ’80s on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, often leaving the host “bent with laughter at his desk with his inspired riffs.” He also staged a late career comeback in the 1980s, appearing in Robin Williams’s sitcom Mork & Mindy as the titular alien’s son, Mearth. Williams credited Winters as the inspiration for his own rapid-fire comic style. “Jonathan taught me that the world is open for play,” said Williams, “that everything and everybody is mockable, in a wonderful way.”