Miles Rook articles

Ruth Buzzi created dozens of characters during a career that stretched from Broadway revues to children’s television, yet none could compete with the scowling, hairnet-wearing Gladys Ormphby of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. What began as an eccentric character Buzzi had been refining before the show existed became one of the most recognizable pieces of physical comedy on television.

Peter Bonerz became instantly recognizable as Bob Hartley’s orthodontist friend on The Bob Newhart Show, but he was already an accomplished improviser before the sitcom and eventually became one of television comedy’s busiest directors. His path from scene-stealing supporting actor to Emmy-winning director explains why his influence reaches far beyond the dentist’s chair.

Lenny Bruce was a stand-up comedian with a knack for political satire and “blue comedy” that could make anyone blush. More often than not, his free-wheeling style of stand-up landed him in trouble with the law—and, worse yet, his wife. But beneath the veneer of this carefree comedian, lurked a deeply troubled individual.

Katherine Helmond spent decades playing women who could be naïve, flirtatious, imperious, absent-minded, or gloriously inappropriate without ever reducing them to cartoons. From Jessica Tate on Soap to Mona Robinson on Who’s the Boss? and Lois Whelan on Everybody Loves Raymond, she repeatedly proved that television’s funniest woman did not have to be the youngest or most sensible person in the room.

Welcome Back, Kotter became famous for Vinnie Barbarino, Horshack, Freddie Washington, and the rest of the Sweathogs, but Marcia Strassman gave the show something equally necessary as Gabe Kotter’s wife, Julie. While the classroom grew louder and John Travolta became a phenomenon, Strassman kept reminding viewers that Gabe had a marriage, a home, and a life outside Buchanan High.

Georgia Engel needed only a few softly spoken words to make a sitcom scene unmistakably hers, and the remarkable part was that the famous voice was essentially her own. From Georgette Franklin to Everybody Loves Raymond and a late-life return to serious theater, Engel spent nearly five decades proving that quiet delivery could produce enormous laughs.

Long before millions of viewers knew William Conrad as the hard-driving private detective Frank Cannon, radio listeners knew him as Marshal Matt Dillon and television audiences heard his booming narration without necessarily knowing the man behind it. What made Conrad’s career extraordinary was the way he repeatedly reinvented himself, moving from radio star to film heavy, director, producer, narrator, and finally an unlikely television leading man in his 50s.

Nancy Walker was short, raspy-voiced, fiercely expressive, and almost perfectly unsuited to Hollywood’s traditional idea of a glamorous leading lady. Those qualities became her advantage, allowing her to steal scenes on Broadway, McMillan & Wife, Rhoda, The Golden Girls, and even paper-towel commercials for half a century.

Crystal Gayle entered the music business with one enormous advantage and one equally enormous problem. Her older sister Loretta Lynn was already one of country music’s defining stars, which opened doors but made comparisons unavoidable.