Modified On May 1, 2007
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.