LOS ANGELES — Tom Poston, the tall, pasty-faced comic who found fame and fortune playing a clueless everyman on such hit television shows as "Newhart" and "Mork and Mindy," is dead at 85.
Poston, who was married to Suzanne Pleshette of "The Bob Newhart Show," died Monday night at home after a brief illness, a family representative, Tanner Gibson, said Tuesday. The nature of his illness was not disclosed.
Bob Newhart remembered Poston as a "versatile and veteran performer and a kindhearted individual."
"Tom was always the 'go-to guy' on 'Newhart' in addition to being a good and longtime friend," Newhart said in a statement Tuesday.
Billy Crystal, who starred in the 1978 film "Rabbit Test" in which Poston also appeared, was another admirer.
"How rare that a gentle, sweet person could be so incredibly funny," Crystal said in a statement. "I grew up watching Tom on 'The Steve Allen Show' as a kid. What an incredible gift to become friends with him and to learn about comedy from a true professional. He was a combination of Stan Laurel and Jack Benny. We will all miss him."
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Poston's run as a comic bumbler began in the mid-1950s with "The Steve Allen Show" after Allen plucked the character actor from Broadway to join an ensemble of eccentrics with whom he would conduct "man in the street" interviews.
Don Knotts was the shaky Mr. Morrison, Louis Nye was the suave, overconfident Gordon Hathaway and Poston's character was so unnerved by the television cameras that he couldn't remember who he was. He won an Emmy playing "The Man Who Can't Remember His Name."
When Allen moved the show from New York to Los Angeles in 1959, Poston stayed behind. "Hollywood's not for me right now; I'm a Broadway cat," he told a reporter at the time. When he finally moved west, he began appearing in variety shows, sitcoms and films.
On "Mork and Mindy," which starred Robin Williams as a space alien, Poston was Franklin Delano Bickley, the mindless boozer with the annoying dog. On "Newhart," he was George Utley, the handyman who couldn't fix anything. And on Newhart's show "Bob," he was the star's dim-bulb former college roommate.
