Obituary: Ken Berry

I reposted some of what I wrote earlier this evening.

Tonight actor Larry Storch, or at least his Facebook page, announced the passing of F Troop co-star and comic actor Ken Berry, who was 85:




Berry also starred in Mayberry RFD, which replaced The Andy Griffith Show when Griffith decided to call it quits.  It did well in the ratings for a couple of years, but it became a casualty of CBS's desire to purge its lineup of rural-based programming for a more urban image.

Berry was extremely talented and excellent as a physical comic.  F Troop, a cult series, was basically his show.  His talents were never utilized as well again.

Jackie Joseph, who was an actress and mentioned in the post, was Berry's ex-wife.




From this site:

The Illinois-born performer was discovered as a dancer as a teen, shortly before he served in the U.S. Army. While there, he won a dance competition that led to his TV debut. He spent the rest of his time in the military as a part of Special Services, entertaining the troops. A second talent competition resulted in an appearance on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town," exposure that won him a contract with Universal.


From the Hollywood Reporter:

Berry, an agile song-and-dance man who was encouraged in show business by his U.S. Army sergeant, future Star Trek legend Leonard Nimoy, died Saturday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his ex-wife, actress Jackie Joseph-Lawrence, told The Hollywood Reporter.

...

Kenneth Ronald Berry was born Nov. 3, 1933, in Moline, Ill. His father was an accountant and his mother a housewife. As a teenager, he won a chance to dance, sing and tour with The Horace Heidt Youth Opportunity Program; the troupe performed in a different town every Sunday night and even did shows overseas for U.S. Air Force personnel.

Berry came home and graduated from Moline High School, then joined the U.S. Army just after the Korean War. He won a talent contest with a tap dancing routine that earned him a trip to New York and a spot on Soldier Parade, an ABC show hosted by Arlene Francis.

After Nimoy invited him into the Special Services Corps, which entertained fellow troops around the country, Berry won another talent contest; this one got him on Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town.

"Lenny told me, 'You ought to get in touch with some of the people at the talent departments at the studios," Berry said in the TV Archive interview. "I said, 'I don't know how to do that.' He said, 'Ah, I'll do it for you.' And he did. He sent wires out to agencies and the people in charge of the talent programs at the various studios. I got a couple of bites, and I took the one from Universal."

New York Times obit:

He chose not to continue acting in his later years. “I don’t do anything,” he told an interviewer cheerfully. “I go where my day takes me.” Which, he added, was often to doctors’ offices.

Music, not acting, was his first career priority (“I thought acting was something you did between numbers”), but eventually he had some words of wisdom for aspiring actors.

“Get on the stage,” he said in the 2012 interview. “Get on your feet. You’ll learn more from that the first time out than you’ll ever learn from any class.”