Emmy Winning Writer Jack Hanrahan Dies at 75

[Zoneboy]

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Jack Hanrahan, once a big-time Hollywood script writer who was found destitute in March 2007 living in a Cleveland homeless shelter, died this morning in a nursing home on Cleveland's West Side.

He was 75 and was suffering from heart problems and other complications.

Hanrahan, who won an Emmy for Rowan & Martin's "Laugh In," was a cartoonist and actor who grew up in Cleveland. He wrote for some of the most popular television shows in the 1960s and 1970s, including "Get Smart," "Police Woman," "The Waltons" and "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour."

In December of 2006, Hanrahan arrived in Cleveland from Californian by bus, penniless and disheveled, his tangled hair hanging to his shoulders and smoking self-rolled cigarettes.

All he had were the clothes on his back, a bag of tobacco and rolling papers. Even his false teeth were missing. And his Emmy was in hock.

Hanrahan tried to connect with relatives here, but his state of mind and needs were too much to handle, said a nephew. So Hanrahan lived on the streets. Through old friends and the staff at the homeless shelter, he was admitted to the VA hospital and eventually to the nursing home.

Raised in a big Irish family on the city's West Side, Hanrahan attended a Catholic seminary before working as a cartoonist for American Greetings. In the early 1960s, while writing and drawing for his own greeting card company in New York, he met Phil Hahn, a writer for Hallmark cards.

Jack Hanrahan
Hanrahan and Hahn would soon become one of Hollywood's most successful writing duos.

In the mid 1960s, Hanrahan, the reckless cutup from Cleveland, and Hahn, the more cautious kid from Kansas, became the talk of Hollywood as big-time producers were knocking at their door.

Soon they were writing for "Get Smart." And by November 1967, they were working on a new show soon to air called "Laugh In."

In his success, Hanrahan got mixed up with drugs and alcohol. For years, he lived in Tinseltown's fast lanes, partying hard with the stars in Malibu mansions and running with the drug crowd.

The lifestyle eventually took its toll and Hanrahan, moving to Eureka, Calif., became an eccentric bum, estranged from his first wife, Rosemarie Donovan, also from Cleveland, and their six children.

In the dead of a Cleveland winter, Hanrahan lived on the streets and in shelters for about three months, looking for handouts and going to daily Mass at St. John's Cathedral downtown.

Chambers funeral home on Cleveland's West Side is handling the funeral arrangements.