Winters passed away Thursday evening. He was 87.
The Ohio native died Thursday evening at his Montecito, Calif., home of natural causes, said Joe Petro III, a longtime family friend. Petro said Winters died surrounded by family and friends.
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. Facial contortions, sound effects, tall tales — all could be used in a matter of seconds to get a laugh.
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. diplomat, bullfighter, flutist, delusional psychiatric patient, British headmaster and Bing Crosby’s golf club.
“As a kid, I always wanted to be lots of things,” Winters told U.S. News & World Report in 1988. “I was a Walter Mitty type. 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.”
Robin Williams without the coke and the strained desire for gravitas.
He’ll be missed.
Exactly. I loved that guy when I was a kid. I even saw the Paar show mentioned in the article when it first aired.
And today we have the likes of Jim Carrey.
Ugh.
Jim Carrey is pretty much on his way down and has been for four or five years. He wore out in 2008 and hasn’t admitted it yet. What he have NOW is crap like Russel Brand and Seth Rogan. Eeeccch.
Unless they are headed out too and I’m two years out of touch with modern comedy and movies. I think of drips like Seth Green, Michael Cera, or that idiot who does Family Guy…
Damn. RIP, Mr. Winters.
Now you can make Carson piss himself again.
Even Robin Williams looks old as hell these days. He named his daughter Zelda and she’s an adult now, so Nintendo had him with a serious ‘grandpa was a pioneer’ beard including neck coverage in a series of commercials because he (supposedly) named her after a video game character.
All the celebrities I know are dead or deep into middle age. Shit.
Here he is somehow smashing a whole gas station in “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ9N7oCKC1E
Godspeed, JW.
In one of 60 Minutes’ rare great moments, during an interview with Ed Bradley, Robin Williams suddenly pipes up, “Let’s go to Jonathan’s house!”. When ensued was, if you’ll forgive the worn-out cliché, pure comedy gold.
RIP, you sweet funny man. You are dearly missed.
Jonathan Winters was awesome. Robin Williams basically owes his career to the man.
I recall the two of them on Carson’s next to last show. He just let them riff and watched.
Winters had a brilliant imagination married to a rare sweetness of soul, neither, really, things that can be taught.
“I was a Walter Mitty type. 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.”
Pretty sure was all of these things in the course of his career.
RIP Jonathan. He was such a terrific guy. I used to see him at the supermarket sometimes, but I didn’t pester him.
Robin Williams is an asshole. He was in an theatre company that I made costumes for in college. He’s a rich kid (his dad was an exec at Ford) who tries too hard. He left his first wife to marry their son’s nanny and had the girl named Zelda with her. She’s named after Zelda Fitzgerald. I still hold him responsible for letting Belushi die.
He left his first wife to marry their son’s nanny
Gov. Arnold’s long lost brother, eh?
Heh. They have a lot in common that way.
Catching Winters on a TV show (like Mike Douglas, or, if I recall correctly, he had his own night-time show for a while) was always a “gas” for my sister and I, kids growing up in the late sixties/early seventies. He was just out of control, crazy, funny, ZANY even. I think his energy was such that it juiced my sister and I to the point that, in all liklihood, one of us punched the other (such were the days of yore).
The only person that came close to that energy, for me anyway, was Dick Swawn.
Did I say “punched”?
I meant to say “love tap”. Yep, that’s it. That’s what my sister (older than me) always called it after she slugged me full-force.
“Geez Mom, I didn’t hit him. It was just a love tap.”
Good times.
Very Sad, we lost a comic and improv genius.
Dude was a comedy *genius*. Lived and worked past the “Great Era” of comedy and learned from it in a way that a lot of comics (almost all) never do.
Just an unbelievably witty, funny man. And somehow managed to make money at it!!!
Steph, Winters had his own show. I remember watching it in either the late 60s or early 70s.
People will still be laughing at old Jonathan Winters clips when the schools have stopped teaching kids about Earth That Was.
Who rarely, if ever, worked blue. How many modern comics can make that claim?
That was Belushi’s fault.
Ultimately, yes. Ordering up more dope for Belushi while he was already shooting up speedballs? Robin didn’t need to do that. What are friends for?
He could have given us a lot more laughs, but noooooooooo!
I used to see him at the bank and at the Post Office until he got very ill.
Sometimes he’d do a little skit to illustrate his transaction.
Huge and good heart on the man. always treated the people whose social status was below his own well earned elevation; with the utmost respect.
Unlike…. well lets not tarnish this Man’s legacy by pointing out other peoples assholedness… mostly because it could go on for days and just hit our new royal family
I’ll have to look for that clip of Williams and Winters on the Carson show. I had the pleasure of seeing them riff off each other live. It was in LA in the 70s when Williams was still on the Mork & Mindy show. That show had gotten to be pretty bad at that point, but Williams was still occasionally pretty funny, and they had brought in Winters as his space kid or something. I don’t think it worked on TV very well, but during the taping, it was quite interesting because these two comic talents were so drawn to each other that they spent every moment in between the camera shots doing improvisation. They really wanted to play, and that play was their art. It was quite clear that it wasn’t just for our benefit. It was for them. That made me happy.