Joe Restivo dead. This time for real.

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on December 2nd, 2007

We saw a lot of chatter in our stats. Some folks were googling “Joe Restivo.” We figured it was just more confusion from the story that ran a year and a half ago. Then we got an email from a reader.

The obituary in the Los Angeles Times confirms it.

Back in June of 2006, a guy by the name of Joe Restivo died. And we posted on it and on the ensuing confusion. The one who died in 2006 was a guy who dabbled in standup, but was primarily a restarateur– in fact, he owned the restaurant made famous by Robert Blake. (It was the one where he “left his gun and hadda go back in to get it” while his girlfriend was being murdered.)

We got word from Joe that he was still quite alive and that he was fielding a lot of phone calls from folks who thought he had passed.

This time, it’s for real.

The Male Half of the Staff fondly recalls a road trip with Restivo when the two had an idle afternoon while working at the Strip in El Paso.

We went over the border into Juarez. After a while, our curiosity got the better of us and we commandeered a cab to take us to a “donkey show.” We eventually got a show… but there was no donkey involved. It sounds a lot worse than it was. It’s probably only funny if you know Joe…. and me. I’ll tell it to you, if we ever meet.”

Restivo’s obit is lengthy and handled ably by Valerie J. Nelson. An excerpt:

Over the last decade, Restivo regularly performed overseas with other comedians in USO shows staged for U.S. troops.

Last year, the comedian initially found humor in the sympathy calls he began fielding after the death of another Joe Restivo, a comedian and actor who had owned Vitello’s restaurant in Studio City.

“By day four or five, it was not funny anymore,” Restivo told the Associated Press after he learned that he had been replaced in a movie because the film crew thought he was dead.

A Chicago native, Restivo launched his entertainment career at 15 by winning a talent contest, which led him to record “Summer Love” and other songs in the early 1960s under the name Joey Richards.

The son of a doctor, he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy of religion at Bradley University in Illinois. He also received a master’s degree from the American Graduate School of International Management and a master’s in religious philosophy from New York University.

While working in marketing for Chesebrough-Ponds in New York City, Restivo caught his first live stand-up show at the New York Improv, and he told The Times in 1990: “I felt like I was home.”

He’s home now. Rest in peace, Joe.

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