Tom Poston, 85
Who didn’t laugh when Tom Poston entered the screen? It was automatic. His mere appearance was enough to signal that something– something subtle, maybe outrageous, maybe goofy– something was about to happen. And he delivered. His voice, his demeanor, his befuddled look– it is what kept him working for fifty years or more.
Poston’s run as a comic bumbler began in the mid-1950s with The Steve Allen Show after Allen plucked the character actor from the Broadway stage to join an ensemble of eccentrics he would conduct “man in the street” interviews with.
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Reply to: Tom Poston, 85
I was the warm-up guy for a while on the show “Newhart,” and Tom Poston was, and remains, one of the nicest men I’ve ever worked with in my life. An absolutely great guy…and, by the way, absolutely hysterical.No angst, no histrionics – he got the joke: we get to make people laugh for money! Whoopee!
Awesome guy. Loved watching him. If there was such a thing as a “comedy kit” he would have to be a part of it.
The line I remember him most for was when he was part of Mork and Mindy as the grumpy downstairs neighbor.He played a greeting card writer, and he was having a writer’s block. As an example of his poor writing, he read, “Your rabbit died…The brave little tuffet.You have two choices…Eat it or stuff it.”
I also thought it was really cute that after all those years since The Bob Newhart Show, he married Suzanne Pleshette in 2001.