Tom Poston, 85, Comic Bumbler On ‘Newhart,’ ‘Mork and Mindy’

Tom Poston, the tall, pasty-faced comic who found fame and fortune playing a clueless everyman on such hit television shows as “Newhart” and “Mork and Mindy,” has died. He was 85.Poston, who was married to Suzanne Pleshette of “The Bob Newhart Show,” died Monday night at home after a brief illness, a family representative, Tanner Gibson, said yesterday. The nature of his illness was not disclosed.Bob Newhart remembered Poston as a “versatile and veteran performer and a kind-hearted individual.”“Tom was always the ‘go-to guy’ on ‘Newhart’ in addition to being a good and longtime friend,” Mr. Newhart said in a statement.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 with whom he would conduct “man in the street” interviews.Don Knotts was the shaky Mr. Morrison, Louis Nye was the suave, overconfident Gordon Hathaway and Poston’s character was so unnerved by the television cameras that he couldn’t remember who he was. He won an Emmy playing “The Man Who Can’t Remember His Name.”But when Allen moved the show from New York to Los Angeles in 1959, Poston stayed behind.“Hollywood’s not for me right now; I’m a Broadway cat,” he told a reporter at the time.When he did finally move west, he quickly began appearing in variety shows, sitcoms and films.On “Mork and Mindy,” which starred Robin Williams as a space alien, Poston was Franklin Delano Bickley, the mindless boozer with the annoying dog. On “Newhart,” he was George Utley, the handyman who couldn’t fix anything at the New England inn run by Mr. Newhart’s character. And on Mr. Newhart’s show “Bob,” he was the star’s dim-bulb former college roommate.“These guys are about a half-step behind life’s parade,” Poston said in a 1983 interview. “The ink on their instruction sheets is beginning to fade. But they can function and cope and don’t realize they are driving people up the walls.“In ways I don’t like to admit, I’m a goof-up myself,” Poston continued. “It’s an essential part of my character. When these guys screw up it reminds me of my own incompetence with the small frustrations of life.”Goof-up or not, Poston was a versatile actor who made his Broadway debut in 1947 playing five roles in Jose Ferrer’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.”Poston and Ms. Pleshette, who had appeared together in the 1959 Broadway play “The Golden Fleecing,” had had a brief fling before marrying other people. Both now widowed, they reunited in 2000 and married the following year.Born in Columbus, Ohio, on October 17, 1921, Poston moved from city to city as a child as his father hunted for work during the Depression. As a teenager, he made money as a boxer.Following two years at Bethany College he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and flew troops to the European war zone during World War II.Poston is survived by Ms. Pleshette, 70, and his children, Francesca Poston, Jason Poston, and Hudson Poston.

Tom Poston, 85, Comic Bumbler On ‘Newhart,’ ‘Mork and Mindy’

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