Advertisement

Comedian took TV by storm with ‘Laugh-In’

Share
From the Associated Press

Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catchphrases as “Sock it to me!,” has died. He was 86.

Martin, who went on to become one of television’s busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, said family spokesman Barry Greenberg.

Martin had lost the use of one of his lungs as a teenager, and needed supplemental oxygen for most of the day in his later years.

Advertisement

He was surrounded by family and friends when he died just after 6 p.m., Greenberg said.

“Laugh-in,” which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy- variety show before it.

Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

Presiding over it all were Rowan and Martin, the veteran nightclub comics whose stand-up banter put their own distinct spin on the show.

Like all straight men, Rowan provided the voice of reason, striving to correct his partner’s absurdities. Martin, meanwhile, was full of bogus, often risque theories about life, which he appeared to hold with unwavering certainty.

Against this backdrop, audiences were taken from scene to scene by quick, sometimes psychedelic-looking visual cuts, where they might see Hawn, Worley and other women dancing in bathing suits with political slogans, or sometimes just nonsense, painted on their bodies.

Other times, Gibson, clutching a flower, would recite nonsensical poetry or Johnson would impersonate a comical Nazi spy.

“Laugh-In” astounded audiences and critics alike.

For two years, the show topped the Nielsen ratings, and its catchphrases -- “Sock it to me,” “You bet your sweet bippy” and “Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall’s” -- were recited across the country.

Advertisement

Stars such as John Wayne and Kirk Douglas were delighted to make brief appearances, and even Richard Nixon, running for president in 1968, dropped in to shout a befuddled-sounding “Sock it to me!”

His opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was offered equal time but declined because his handlers thought it would appear undignified.

Rowan and Martin landed the show just as their comedy partnership was approaching its zenith and the nation’s counterculture was expanding into the mainstream.

The two were both struggling actors when they met in 1952.

Rowan had sold his interest in a used car dealership to take acting lessons, and Martin, who had written gags for TV shows and comedians, was tending bar in Los Angeles.

Although their early gigs in the San Fernando Valley were often performed gratis, they donned tuxedos for them and put on an air of success.

“We were raw,” Martin recalled years later, “but we looked good together and we were funny.”

Advertisement

They gradually worked up to the top nightspots in New York, Miami and Las Vegas, and began to appear regularly on television.

In 1966, they provided the summer replacement for “The Dean Martin Show.” Within two years, they were headlining their own show.

The novelty of “Laugh-In” diminished with each season, however, and as major players such as Hawn and Tomlin moved on to bigger careers, interest in the series faded and the show ended in 1973.

Rowan and Martin parted amicably in 1977, and Rowan died 10 years later.

Martin moved onto the game-show circuit, but quickly tired of it. Fellow comic Bob Newhart’s agent suggested he take up directing.

He was reluctant at first, but soon he became one of the industry’s busiest TV directors, working on numerous episodes of “Newhart” as well as such shows as “In the Heat of the Night,” “Archie Bunker’s Place” and “Family Ties.”

Born in 1922 in Battle Creek, Mich., Martin had worked in a Ford auto assembly plant after high school, his family said.

Advertisement

Martin is survived by his wife, Dolly Read, a former bunny at the Playboy Club in London; and two sons, actor Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

At Martin’s request, there will be no funeral, Greenberg said.

Martin lost the use of his right lung when he was 17, something that never bothered him until his final years, when he required oxygen 18 hours a day.

Arriving for a party celebrating his 80th birthday, he fainted and was treated by doctors and paramedics. The party continued, however, and he cracked, “Boy, did I make an entrance!”

Advertisement