In The News

Comic genius Jonathan Winters passes away

Comic genius Jonathan Winters passes away

THE comic genius Jonathan Winters has passed away. He was 87.

The American was best known for the many comic characters he had developed during his long career. With names such as Chester Honeyhugger and Elwood P. Suggins, Mr. Winters was to say: “The characters are my jokes”.

Unfortunately, while his great talents could be regularly enjoyed over the years by TV audiences in the United States, fans outside of the country had more limited opportunities to see him in action, especially since Mr. Winters only occasionally appeared in movies.

However, many will remember his performance in the film It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (1963) as the hapless truck driver caught-up in the hilarious search for a hidden fortune (see below).

On TV, he appeared in a season of Mork & Mindy as the character Mearth alongside Robin Williams and Pam Dawber.

But he mostly liked to confine his work to TV appearances which allowed him to display his great skills of improvisation. When the talk show host Johnny Carson was being honoured, Mr. Winters appeared as an old school friend (see below).

More recently he had completed filming on the movie Big Finish, which will be released in 2014. He had also voiced the character of Papa Smurf for the forthcoming The Smurfs 2 — a follow-on to his performance in the first film which was released in 2011.

To see Mr. Winters in action in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World click here.

To view his appearance as an old school friend of Johnny Carson’s, click here.

To see an excerpt from an interview which Mr. Winters gave to Larry King in 1988, click here.

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