![]() I had a breakdown and I turned myself in (to a mental hospital). "I became a robot," Winters told TV critics in 2000. And before long, he was struggling with depression and his drinking. The character was the forerunner of Johnny Carson's Aunt Blabby.Īppearances on Paar's show and others followed and Winters soon had a following. Two days later, he cooked up one of his most famous characters: the hard-drinking, dirty old woman Maude Frickert, modeled in part on his own mother and an aunt. "He said, `What's the matter with those characters in Ohio? I'll bet there are some far-out dudes that you grew up with back in Ohio,'" Winters told the Orange County Register in 1997. ![]() One night after a show, an older man sweeping up told him he wasn't breaking any new ground by mimicking the rich or famous. At one point, he won a talent contest (and the first prize of a watch) by doing impressions of movie stars.Īfter stints as a radio disc jockey and TV host in Ohio from 1950-53, he left for New York, where he found early work doing impressions of John Wayne, Cary Grant, Marx and James Cagney, among others. He returned to study at the Dayton Art Institute, helping him develop keen observational skills. Winters joined the Marines at 17 and served two years in the South Pacific. Whatever humor I've inherited I'd have to give credit to her," Winters told the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2000. But he found a comedic mentor in his mother, radio personality Alice Bahman. Winters described his father as an alcoholic. Growing up during the Depression as an only child whose parents divorced when he was 7, Winters spent a lot of time entertaining himself. You could say he invented the video stunt." ![]() He soon used video technology "to appear as two characters, bantering back and forth, seemingly in the studio at the same time. Winters quickly realized the possibilities, author David Hajdu wrote in The New York Times in 2006. Winters had made television history in 1956, when RCA broadcast the first public demonstration of color videotape on "The Jonathan Winters Show." "They follow me around pretty much all day and night." "These voices are always screaming to get out," he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that year. Fittingly, he played three characters in the "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" movie in 2000. Winters was sought out in later years for his changeling voice and he contributed to numerous cartoons and animated films. He also won the Kennedy Center's second Mark Twain Prize for Humor in 1999, a year after Richard Pryor. He also won two Grammys: One for his work on "The Little Prince" album in 1975 another for his "Crank Calls" comedy album in 1996. He was nominated again in 2003 as outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for an appearance on "Life With Bonnie." Winters' only Emmy was for best-supporting actor for playing Randy Quaid's father in the sitcom "Davis Rules" (1991). Said Williams: "The best stuff was before the cameras were on, when he was open and free to create. Winters, who battled alcoholism and depression for years, was introduced to millions of new fans in 1981 as the son of Williams' goofball alien and his earthling wife in the final season of ABC's "Mork and Mindy." But Williams and Carrey are his best-known followers. Suggins, for example, were based on people Winters knew growing up in Ohio.Ī devotee of Groucho Marx and Laurel and Hardy, Winters and his free-for-all brand of humor inspired Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, Tracey Ullman and Lily Tomlin, among others. The humor most often was based in reality – his characters Maude Frickert and Elwood P. I wanted to be in the French Foreign Legion, a detective, a doctor, a test pilot with a scarf, a fisherman who hauled in a tremendous marlin after a 12-hour fight." ![]() "As a kid, I always wanted to be lots of things," Winters told U.S. diplomat, bullfighter, flutist, delusional psychiatric patient, British headmaster and Bing Crosby's golf club. On Jack Paar's television show in 1964, Winters was handed a foot-long stick and he swiftly became a fisherman, violinist, lion tamer, canoeist, U.N. Facial contortions, sound effects, tall tales – all could be used in a matter of seconds to get a laugh. Winters was a pioneer of improvisational standup comedy, with an exceptional gift for mimicry, a grab bag of eccentric personalities and a bottomless reservoir of creative energy. Petro said Winters died of natural causes and was surrounded by family and friends. The Ohio native died Thursday evening at his Montecito, Calif., home of natural causes, said Joe Petro III, a longtime family friend. Jonathan Winters, the cherub-faced comedian whose breakneck improvisations and misfit characters inspired the likes of Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, has died. ![]()
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