Sad, and 66 is waaaay too early. We don’t have details except it involved a “medical emergency.” Very much liked him. This article mentions his feelings about his near-death experience during car accident. Very moving.
Garry Shandling has died at the age of 66, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to an address reported to be Shandling’s at 10:40 a.m. on “a medical emergency.” The patient was then transported to Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. Shandling’s publicist and agency did not return requests for comment.
The comedian, whose career has spanned decades in the industry, is known for his turns with the Larry Sanders Show and Garry Shandling Show.
He recently appeared in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War and Iron Man 2 as well as cameoing in a slew of comedies including The Dictator, Funny People and Zoolander.
Born in Chicago, Shandling’s family relocated to Tucson, Ariz., to help treat his older brother, Barry, who suffered from cystic fibrosis. Barry died at age 10 but the family remained.
Shandling moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to give comedy writing a shot. He first earned a living writing ad copy, but his dry, cerebral wit quickly earned him staff-writer gigs on sitcoms like Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter.
In 1977, when he was 27, Shandling was in a serious car accident in Beverly Hills that nearly killed him.
“I had a vivid near-death experience that involved a voice asking, ‘Do you want to continue leading Garry Shandling’s life?'” he later wrote. “Without thinking, I said, ‘Yes.’ Since then, I’ve been stuck living in the physical world while knowing, without a doubt, that there’s something much more meaningful within it all. That realization is what drives my life and work.”
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Thanks for so many laughs, Garry. RIP
May he rest in peace.
I remember him the most from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. American Masters has a video of him and Seinfeld discussing going out to dinner with Carson to talk about show business. He was that good. RIP.
A favorite bit from Gary was the story about when he got his dog neutered. Gary got his dog from the corner of the room where he was licking himself all the while praising him for being such a good boy. He put him into the back seat of a taxi. After bringing him back from the vet, the dog was let out to return to his favorite corner. The dog sat there, looked down to find his anatomy missing. Looking up at Gary he said “Gary, where are my b@lls? They were here an hour ago. I was sitting here, I was a good boy…now I have no b@lls.”
Here’s a sobering episode from Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in a Car Getting Coffee titled “It’s Great That Gary Shandling is Still Alive”
http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/garry-shandling-its-great-that-garry-shandling-is-still-alive
Time to pull out the Larry Sanders Show tapes…RIP to one of the funniest guys in standup and comedy film.
So sad. I have loved watching the Larry Sanders show since owning the DVDs, though I’m a bit of a late-comer to it.