Don Rickles (1926-2017)

[Zoneboy]

"Mr. Warmth" forged a career when he turned the tables on his hecklers, going on to make fun of everyone he encountered — even Frank Sinatra.

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Don Rickles, the rapid-fire insult machine who for six decades earned quite a living making fun of people of all creeds and colors and everyone from poor slobs to Frank Sinatra, has died. He was 90.

The legendary comic died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles of kidney failure, publicist Paul Shefrin announced.

Sarcastically nicknamed “Mr. Warmth,” Rickles had mock disdain for stars, major public figures and all those who paid to see him, tweaking TV audiences and Las Vegas showroom crowds with his acerbic brand of takedown comedy. A good guy and devoted husband away from the stage, Rickles the performer heartlessly laid into everyone he encountered — and they loved it.

After toiling in relative obscurity for years as a more conventional stand-up comedian, Rickles unwittingly discovered his biggest laughs came when he turned the tables on his hecklers. His career then skyrocketed after he insulted the hot-tempered Sinatra, who normally did not take kindly to such treatment.

When the superstar singer and actor walked into a Miami Beach club in 1957 where Rickles was performing, the comedian greeted the “Chairman of the Board” from the stage: “Make yourself at home Frank. Hit somebody.” Sinatra roared — with laughter.

With Sinatra’s endorsement, Rickles began his comedic assault on people famous and not so famous — Jews, Asians, African Americans, the Irish, Puerto Ricans, red-headed women, short guys, you name it — with tremendous results. He referred to stupid people as “hockey pucks,” and in 1959, he signed for his first Las Vegas appearance, in the lounge of the Hotel Sahara.

In 1985, when Sinatra was asked to perform at Ronald Reagan’s second Inaugural Ball, he insisted that Rickles accompany him for a comedy routine. Rickles, naturally, did not spare the president (“Am I going too fast for you, Ronnie?” he asked) and considered that performance among the highlights of his career.

Rickles was still going strong in June 2012 when, during the American Film Institute’s tribute to actress Shirley MacLaine, he joked that he “shouldn’t make fun of the blacks. President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke.”

Rickles honed his reputation in numerous appearances on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts that ran on NBC from the mid-1970s to the mid-80s. The specials provided a perfect venue for Rickles to unleash his caustic brand of humor on such visiting dignitaries as Sinatra, Reagan, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Kirk Douglas, Sammy Davis Jr. and Mr. T.

Johnny Carson provided Rickles a late-night stage by making him one of The Tonight Show’s most-frequent guests. On one memorable moment in 1968, Rickles cozied up to a half-naked Carson during a sketch with two Japanese female masseuses and said, “I’m so lonely, Johnny!” Carson threw him in a bathtub. More recently, he was a regular guest on Late Show With David Letterman, in which the CBS host treated Rickles like royalty.

Rickles intermittently played in movies, highlighted by Kelly’s Heroes (1970), where he co-starred with Clint Eastwood as Sgt. Crapgame, an Army black-marketer who had no compunction about cutting favorable deals with the Nazis.

He also played opposite beach bunny Annette Funicello in such movies as Pajama Party (1964) and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), appeared as a Vegas casino manager in Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) and voiced the cranky Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story films.

He was still regularly working and had a recent gig touring in theaters with Regis Philbin.

Rickles and his wife, Barbara, often vacationed with deadpan comic Bob Newhart and his wife, Ginnie.

"He was called 'The Merchant of Venom,' but in truth, he was one of the kindest, caring and most sensitive human beings we have ever known," the Newharts said in a statement. "We are devastated, and our world will never be the same. We were totally unprepared for this."

Donald Jay Rickles was born on May 8, 1926, in New York and raised in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens. Following graduation from Newtown High School, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, then studied acting and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

At age 32, Rickles landed a small part in Robert Wise’s submarine drama Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), starring Clark Gable. Two years later, he was cast in The Rat Race with Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds.

Not surprisingly, Rickles found there weren’t many leading roles for a paunchy 5-foot-6 balding man. So, he worked up a nightclub act. After his Sinatra encounter, he perfected his bite and would land gigs in all the Vegas hotels: the Riviera, the Golden Nugget, the Desert Inn and the Sahara.

Rickles would come onstage accompanied by the old Spanish bullfight song “La Virgen de la Macarena,” a subtle signal that someone was about to be metaphorically gored.

Flush with his casino successes, Rickles cut two best-selling comedy albums in the ’60s: Hello, Dummy! and Don Rickles Speaks.

Success as a star of his own TV series eluded him. He played Naval Petty Officer Otto Sharkey in NBC’s CPO Sharkey, which ran from 1976-78, and a used car salesman and father of Richard Lewis in Daddy Dearest, quickly canceled by Fox in 1993. He had two series titled The Don Rickles Show; each ran a handful of episodes. For one season in the ’80s, he hosted ABC’s Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders with singer Steve Lawrence.

Rickles’ TV guest appearances include episodes of The Twilight Zone, Wagon Train, Burke’s Law, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., I Dream of Jeannie, I Spy, Get Smart (alongside his buddy, Don Adams), Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, Sanford and Son, The Bernie Mac Show and Hot in Cleveland.

In addition to his wife of 52 years, survivors include their daughter Mindy, son-in-law Ed and grandchildren Ethan and Harrison. Their son Larry, who produced the HBO documentary Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, died in December 2011 at age 41.

Funeral services will be private. Donations can be made to the Larry Rickles Endowment Fund at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

[um]

i had not heard of Don Rickles for such a long time that I thought he already had gone to the comedy club in the sky. Let's assume it is in the sky. (He always loved to do insult comedy I guess he would not mind the jokey remark).


He lived to be 90 which is unusually long. It is ironic how in a way, it is said that younger people alive today can expect to live the longest of any other previous generation because of modern medicine, but people who were born in the 1920s and 1930s had a tendency to live longer before modern medicine.
It is something how certain entertainers who became known before the 1960s or no later than the 1960s went on to live close to 100. Of course George Burns and Bob Hope lived to be 100 ( as far as I know).

How many of the crop of aging performers from the 70s and 80s and 90s will live that long?

[AB]

Rest in peace. I believe he made the rounds on some of the talk shows not too long ago.

[visaman666]

He used to play at the River Rock Casino in Richmond all rhetoric time. Sadly I never went to see.him.

[Marvo301]

What a long and brilliant career Don Rickles had. He from rubbing shoulders with Frank Sinatra and the rat pack to a series of hilariously funny guest appearances on 60's and 70's sitcoms to headling CPO Sharkey to being one of Johnny Carson's favorite guests on the Tonight Show. He continued to appear on talk shows and to do stand-up comedy gigs right to the end. Don Rickles

[Yong Fang]

Don Rickles did late nigth talk shows until the end. He was on Jimmy Kimmel numerous times (even had Don Rickles and Ozzy Osbourne of all people on stage one night), and Kimmel was in tears during his monologue when he found out Rickles died.

Rickles is my favorite too, the man lived to be over 90 though and outlived everyone in his generation except for Jerry Lewis, and Dick Van Dyke if we count everyone in show business born in the 1920's, but Rickles was the last of the old school, Las vegas, Rat Pack type entertainers of the 1950's and 1960's.

[OH Nuts!]

He was an institution. In this day of ultra political correctness, this kind of act would crash. What made it work was Don did it at the right time and place, and offscreen, was a kind and genial man. Also his act had a strange "equal opportunity" quslity : No race, creed, age, gender, sex escaped his barbs. H was a pistol till the very end. May he rest in peace.