The 1980s are several decades gone now,
and many of the stars of that time's comedies have left this mortal plane - sometimes without
much media attention. Here are some of the biggest stars of '80s sitcoms who have died.
Alan Thicke had a long and memorable career in American television - particularly
sitcoms - landing his first regular series acting gig in 1985, with the ABC sitcom "Growing Pains".
He played Dr. Jason Seaver, a caring and conscientious dad who ran his psychiatry
practice out of his Long Island home, so he could be closer to his rambunctious kids.
In addition to his work as an actor, Thicke was a songwriter. As E! News recounted,
he was behind some of TV's most beloved theme songs, such as the intro tunes for
other '80s-era sitcoms including "The Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes".
He was the father of three sons, including Brennan Thicke - who voiced the title
character on the '80s animated version of Dennis the Menace - and pop star
Robin Thicke. He was playing hockey with his youngest son, Carter Thicke, in 2016,
when he suffered a heart attack, according to the Los Angeles Times. He later died at the age of 69.
In the very early 1980s, Harry Anderson was a frequent guest on talk and variety shows,
performing his signature mix of stand-up comedy and sleight-of-hand magic.
He proved that his persona translated to scripted comedy with a series appearance on "Cheers"
as a bar-haunting con-man named Harry the Hat, bridging his starring role on "Night Court". From
1984 to 1992, Anderson played Harry T. Stone, one of the youngest and friendliest judges in the New
York City judicial system, a magic-and-Mel Tormé lover who presides over a late-night courtroom
processing sex workers, drug dealers, and others who are almost as wacky as the judge's colleagues.
Anderson earned three straight Emmy Award nominations in the mid-'80s for "Night
Court" and then went on to play humor columnist Dave Barry on the '90s comedy "Dave's World".
In 2018, according to The New York Times, Anderson was hospitalized with influenza
and remained sick for several months afterward. He
was discovered dead at his home in North Carolina. The magician and actor was 65.
With his frequent club gigs and numerous appearances on daytime and late-night talk
shows in the 1970s and 1980s, Garry Shandling was a big part of the stand-up comedy boom of
that era. He also pioneered the observational comedy style that contemporaries like Jay
Leno and Jerry Seinfeld would popularize. Like Leno, he'd be a frequent guest host for Johnny
Carson on "The Tonight Show", and like Seinfeld, Shandling would go on to co-create and star in a
very progressive, game-changing TV sitcom. "It’s Garry Shandling's Show" was a fourth-wall-busting,
self-conscious sitcom filmed on a fake-looking set about a comedian and sitcom star named Garry
Shandling. In 1992, two years after the show ended its four-season run,
Shandling returned to TV with "The Larry Sanders Show", another innovative comedy
that took place behind the scenes of a Tonight Show-esque talk show.
According to Variety:
"[Shandling] called 911 on March 24,
2016 because he couldn't breathe and collapsed while on the phone."
He was declared dead at the age of 66 due to a blood clot in the lungs.
Edna Garrett, the proper, protective, and warble-voiced housemother and dietitian
at the Eastland School for Girls, lorded over her charges Tootie, Jo, Natalie, and Blair on
"The Facts of Life" for seven years. However, the character originated on another sitcom,
"Diff'rent Strokes." Edna was the maid for Philip Drummond and his brood of kids,
but Charlotte Rae did such a great job with the character in her one season on "Strokes" that
she got to move her character from a Manhattan luxury apartment to a Peekskill boarding school.
It's no surprise, because Rae was a versatile pro, a two-time Tony Award nominee in the 1960s,
co-star of the classic police sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?",
Molly the Mail Lady on "Sesame Street" and the mother of Woody Allen's character in "Bananas".
In 2010, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Rae was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,
which by 2017 had spread to her bones. She died in 2018 at age 92.
Dixie Carter starred in two '80s sitcom classics. In 1984, she joined "Diff'rent Strokes" in its
final years as Maggie McKinney, the new wife of lonely widower and orphan adopter Mr. Drummond.
Then, she jumped to "Designing Women" in 1986, portraying Julia Sugarbaker,
an exceedingly bright, confident, and acerbic Atlanta-based interior designer.
"Designing Women" was an ensemble comedy, but Carter tended to get the showiest moments.
Julia often delivered dramatic, politically progressive and humanistic monologues,
which were met by the studio audience with thunderous applause.
"One thing I did forget was just how divisive and dishonest and distasteful
someone like you can be."
Following a main role on the CBS legal procedural "Family Law",
Carter landed a recurring role as Gloria Hodge on "Desperate Housewives," earning
the actor her first Emmy Award nomination. In 2010, according to The New York Times,
Carter died at age 70 following endometrial cancer complications.
At the top of "Designing Women" in 1986,
Anthony Bouvier had just been released from prison for a robbery he didn't commit, and he fell into
what would prove a taxing job as an assistant to the women of Atlanta's Sugarbaker Designs,
chiefly seeing to the wild personal whims of Suzanne Sugarbaker. By the end of the show,
the tentative and unsure Anthony had achieved a law degree and become a partner in the company.
Meshach Taylor, previously best known for his role as window dresser Hollywood Montrose in
the popular 1987 fantasy comedy "Mannequin," portrayed Anthony for the run of the show,
receiving an Emmy Award nomination along the way. Taylor remained a presence in TV comedy
into the '90s and beyond, co-starring on the CBS sitcom "Dave's World" for four seasons and
playing Mr. Wright on the Nickelodeon comedy "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide".
In June 2014, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor died in his sleep at his
home in California after a long illness, which his representative confirmed was cancer. He was 67.
Why would a middle-class family of five living in a modestly sized home in suburban Pittsburgh
need a butler? That was the question posed by the 1985 to 1990 ABC sitcom "Mr. Belvedere".
The answer: to make snarky, cutting quips at those he considers not as refined as himself,
such as Owens family dad George, and to counsel and spar with youngest child Wesley.
Before he was well-cast as the cultured and well-traveled Lyn Aloysius Belvedere, Christopher
Hewett hadn't done much screen work, appearing in only about 20 projects dating back to the early
fifties, but most notably and recently in the final season of "Fantasy Island" as Lawrence,
a Mr. Belvedere-like butler. Hewett was primarily a man of the stage, directing revues and starring
in plays and musicals, notably as Captain Hook in a 1979 Broadway revival of "Peter Pan."
In August 2001, 80-year-old Hewett died at home after a hospital stay,
according to the Los Angeles Times.
The star of "ALF", the bizarre but heavily-viewed NBC sci-fi-sitcom about a cool, cat-eating, couch
potato alien from the planet Melmac who crashes in suburbia and crashes with a suburban family,
was undoubtedly ALF himself - played by Paul Fusco. However, every over-the-top character
needs a foil, their opposite to play against for comic effect, and for ALF that was Willie Tanner,
a sputtering, sad sack civil servant who never approved of any of ALF's hilarious antics.
Max Wright, a veteran of the dark and acclaimed early '80s sitcom
"Buffalo Bill" and multiple Broadway productions, played Willie to the hilt.
After his time on "ALF", Wright did a lot of TV, usually playing a variation of his speciality:
exasperated and unlikeable nerds. He popped up on "Friends" as Terry, the manager of the
Central Perk coffeehouse, and as loathsome boss Max Denby on Norm Macdonald's "Norm".
Wright died from complications of cancer at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in 2019,
according to The New York Times. He was 75.
Two Richard Mulligan performances bookended the 1980s, and the veteran film actor won an Emmy
Award for both. A couple of years into the run of ABC's racy soap opera parody "Soap" in 1980,
he earned a statuette for his role as bumbling and overwhelmed patriarch Burt Campbell.
And then in 1989, Mulligan took home another Emmy for his big TV comeback role
on the sitcom "Empty Nest" as Dr. Harry Weston, an elderly pediatrician coping
with the death of his wife and his needy adult children who move back in.
"Laverne, this is strange. What's going on?"
"Well it just occurred to me that I could be running this office in a more efficient manner."
"Oh, I don't think so."
Following "The Golden Girls" on NBC's popular Saturday night lineup, "Empty Nest" ran from
1988 to 1995, and it frequently ranked among the top 10 most-watched shows on TV. According
to The Washington Post, Mulligan died of colon cancer in September of 2000. He was 67 years old.
It may have been called "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," but the breakout character of
the 1970s TV classic was boorish, impossibly stupid and arrogant news anchor Ted Baxter,
played wonderfully by Ted Knight, previously best known for his voice work as a narrator
on DC Comics cartoons. After Mary Tyler Moore's series ended, Knight took his two Emmy Awards and
starred in the movie "Caddyshack" and then the '80s sitcom "Too Close for Comfort." He played
Henry Rush, a San Francisco-based cartoonist of the comic strip "Cosmic Cow" who can never
get any work done because of his live-in daughters and their annoying friend Monroe.
Though ABC cancelled the show in 1983, it was picked up for syndication in 1985.
The setting changed from San Francisco to Marin County, a new theme song was added,
and the whole thing was renamed "The Ted Knight Show." Also in 1985, Knight was diagnosed with
colon cancer. By the summer of 1986, according to the Los Angeles Times, the sitcom was the number
1 syndicated comedy on TV. Production ended after Knight died in August 1986 at age 62.
Sure, Katherine Helmond co-starred in fondly remembered films like "Brazil,"
"Overboard," and "Time Bandits." She voiced Lizzie the Model T in all three of Pixar's "Cars" movies.
But most people will always recognize the actor for her work as Mona Robinson, the elderly but
openly lascivious live-in mother of advertising executive Angela Bower on the 1984 to 1992 ABC
mega-hit "Who's the Boss?" Critics didn't love "Who's the Boss?," and Katherine Helmond is the
only member of the show's cast to ever receive an Emmy nomination - she got two, in fact.
Helmond performed well into her eighties, including an appearance on "True Blood."
According to BBC, she died in February 2019 at age 89 due to complications from Alzheimer's disease.
Valerie Harper was nothing short of a sitcom superstar in the 1970s, thanks to her role as
Mary Richards' best friend, fashionable bohemian Rhoda Morgenstern, on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"
and its popular spinoff "Rhoda." Over the course of two shows, Harper picked up eight Emmy Award
nominations for portraying Rhoda, winning four times. In 1986 she ended up headlining the NBC
family comedy "Valerie," tailored just for her. Harper played Valerie Hogan, a busy
working mother to three teenage boys. It was a sweet and mildly funny sitcom in that '80s mold,
until it turned tragic. In the Season 3 premiere of "Valerie," viewers learned that Valerie Hogan
died in a car accident. The series was renamed "Valerie's Family" and later "The Hogan Family."
Sandy Duncan joined the cast as Aunt Sandy, who moved in with the Hogans to help out.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Valerie Hogan's death was the end
result of a financial dispute. Harper wanted more money, but production company Lorimar
refused. Harper didn't show up for work in protest, and ultimately, Lorimar fired her.
Harper weathered the professional storm and appeared in dozens more projects,
even after being diagnosed with a form of brain cancer in 2013.
The disease would eventually lead to Harper's death in 2019 at age 80.
Mary Frann first found success in the world of pageants. Then, after hosting a Chicago morning
show for a stint, she moved to Hollywood to make it as an actor. She starred on "Days
of Our Lives" for five years in the 1970s before landing her most famous role in 1982:
Joanna Louden, co-owner of an inn in a wacky Vermont town, on "Newhart." She played the bubbly,
easygoing foil to Bob Newhart's quietly exasperated Dick Louden. Frann worked only
sporadically after "Newhart" ended in 1990, guest-starring on the likes of "Diagnosis
Murder" and "Lois and Clark" and starring in the tawdry miniseries "Jackie Collins' Lucky Chances."
In September 1998, according to the Los Angeles Times, Frann died in her sleep at the age of 55.
It seemed like the only sane, sensible, and decent person with any sense of self-preservation on
"Soap" was Benson DuBois, the highly intelligent and sarcastic cook and butler for the well-off
Tate family - played by Robert Guillaume. Benson was the classic sitcom smart aleck,
and after just over two seasons, the character departed "Soap" for the spinoff "Benson."
He'd take home an Emmy for "Benson" in 1985, by which point the character had worked his way
up from head of household for the governor of a never-named state to a potential governor himself.
"That's some little girl. I bet the dogs don't mess with her."
"Benson" concluded in 1986, and Guillaume soon got his own series again in 1989,
the short-lived "The Robert Guillaume Show". He appeared on dozens of TV
shows in recurring or guest roles, along with voicing Rafiki in "The Lion King"
and being part of the regular cast of Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night".
A few years after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, Guillaume died in October 2017 at age 89.
Nearly 70 years old and a working actor in television for well over three decades,
George Gaynes finally scored the two biggest and most beloved roles of his life in 1984.
That year, he debuted as Commandant Eric Lassard in the first of seven "Police Academy" movies,
and he also began playing Henry Warnimont, a photographer who opens his life,
apartment, and cold heart to become the guardian of Penelope "Punky" Brewster,
an abandoned child squatting in his apartment building, on "Punky Brewster".
Gaynes stayed on with "Punky Brewster" for nearly 100 episodes, and voiced Henry in the
animated Saturday morning adaptation, too. After the show shut down in 1988,
he went to play recurring roles on the dramedy "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd"
and the political comedy "Hearts Afire". In 2016, George Gaynes died at the age of 98.
"Webster" was a silly and sweet family comedy, but one with a very sad setup. After his parents are
killed in a car accident, precocious five-year-old Webster Long goes to live with his godfather,
George Papadopolis - a former football player - and his wife, Katherine. The two have to adjust to
unexpected parenthood while Webster fills their lives with joy, wonder, and sappy storylines.
Big and imposing Alex Karras was believable as a former football player because he really was
a former football player, and one of the best to ever play the game.
Karras played defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions from 1958 to 1970,
was chosen for four Pro Bowls, and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. After playing
himself in the football movie "Paper Lion", Karras fully moved into acting in the 1970s,
mostly playing bullies, bruisers, and tough guys in projects like "Blazing Saddles".
According to the Associated Press, in the 2010s Karras experienced kidney failure,
heart disease, stomach cancer, and dementia. In October 2012, he died at age 77.
Broadway didn't generate widely-known stars the way that it had in the 1950s and 1960s,
but Nell Carter was just that undeniable in "Ain't Misbehavin". For the revue,
a tribute to the music of early 20th century legend Fats Waller,
Carter won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, as well as a Special
Class Emmy for a 1982 broadcast of the show. Carter was also nominated for Outstanding Lead
Actress in a Comedy that year for the first season of her NBC show "Gimme a
Break!" Bringing her big voice and infectious personality to TV, Carter played Nell Harper,
the nosy housekeeper for grumpy police chief Carl Kanisky and his three teenage daughters.
After the show was cancelled in 1987, Carter appeared in lots of comedies,
including a significant run on "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper",
and returned to Broadway for revivals of "Annie" and "Ain't Misbehavin".
According to the Associated Press, Carter collapsed at home in Beverly
Hills in January 2003. An autopsy suggested that complications of diabetes and heart
disease likely contributed to the actor and singer's death at age 54.
"The Carol Burnett Show" ended its 11-season run on CBS as primetime's premiere comedy variety
show in 1978. Five years later, NBC premiered "Mama's Family", a standalone expansion of the
series' sketches about a tight-knight Southern family headed up by Mama, who was usually angry
and yelling at her shiftless and dopey relatives. "Carol Burnett Show" cast member Vicki Lawrence
reprised her role as the titular matriarch Thelma Harper, as did Burnett and Harvey Norman as Eunice
and Alistair Quince, initially and respectively, while actors new to the world of "Mama" filled
out the cast. Ken Berry signed on to play Mama's youngest son, the clumsy and oafish Vinton Harper,
a role he kept throughout "Mama's Family's" run, both on NBC and in first-run syndication. Broad,
wacky, populist, ensemble sitcoms were familiar territory for Berry. Prior to "Mama's Family",
he was best known for his work as farmer Sam Jones on "The Andy Griffith Show" and its continuation
"Mayberry R.F.D.", and as Captain Wilton Parmenter on the 1800s-set army comedy "F Troop".
Berry essentially retired from acting in 1999, and according to The New York Times, he died at
Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, in December 2018 at the age of 85.
A familiar voice in Charlotte and New York City radio in the 1970s,
Jay Thomas started appearing on screen as an actor at the end of the decade,
joining the cast of "Mork and Mindy" in 1979 as Remo DaVinci, brother of Mindy's best friend
Jeanie and co-owner of the New York Delicatessen. After that show ended its lengthy run in 1981,
Thomas appeared on several other '80s sitcoms, including "Family Ties" and "The Golden Girls",
before landing a recurring role on "Cheers" as Eddie LeBec, an odious French Canadian hockey
star turned ice show performer who becomes the second husband of bar server Carla Tortelli.
Thomas left "Cheers" in 1989 when Eddie was killed by a rogue Zamboni during an ice show,
and he went on to star on the CBS sitcom "Love & War"
and land another recurring love interest role, this time as Jerry Gold on "Murphy Brown".
According to CNN, Thomas died of cancer in 2017 at age 69.
From 1982 to 1987, "Silver Spoons" was on NBC. The sitcom starred Ricky Schroder as Ricky Stratton,
a tween who goes to live with his biological father, the immature and fun-loving director of
a toy company who lives in a gigantic mansion. Countering the antics of the child and his
child-like father was Dexter Stuffins, the elder Stratton's stuffy, conservative, and unflappable
business manager. Franklyn Seales played the character for four seasons, and apart from a
recurring role on the late '80s church sitcom "Amen", notable appearances on "Growing Pains"
and "Hill Street Blues", and a main role in 1979's "The Onion Field", he was primarily a stage actor.
Seales trained at Juilliard under the esteemed John Houseman - who
had a recurring role on "Silver Spoons" as Grandpa Stratton - and performed in
small and experimental plays in and around Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In May 1990, at his family's home in Brooklyn, New York,
Seales died from complications of AIDS at age 37.
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