Laugh-In's Dick Martin Dead at 86
Dick Martin by Mark Sullivan/WireImage.com
Dick Martin, best known for his cohosting of TV's irreverent and counter-culture
Laugh-In, died Saturday night of respiratory complications. He was 86. Martin, who lost the use of one of his lungs as a teenager, "had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years," a family spokesperson tells the
AP, and required supplemental oxygen for as much as 18 hours a day. "He had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago."
As the hosts of
Laugh-In, which debuted in 1968, Dan Rowan (also a veteran nightclub comic at the time) played straight man to Martin. The variety series for two years topped the Nielsens and bore such catchphrases as catchphrases as "Sock it to me" (once delivered by Richard Nixon, in a cameo) and "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's." Rowan, who suffered from diabetes, died in 1987.
Later in his career, Martin was convinced by Bob Newhart to try TV directing, and went on to call the shots on episodes of
Newhart,
Archie Bunker's Place and
Family Ties. -
Matt Mitovich
