Obituaries

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Comedic actor Ken Berry.


Kenneth Ronald Berry (November 3, 1933 – December 1, 2018) was an American actor, dancer and singer. Berry starred on the television series F Troop, The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry R.F.D. and Mama's Family. He also appeared on Broadway in The Billy Barnes Revue, headlined as George M. Cohan in the musical George M! and provided comic relief for the medical drama Dr. Kildare, with Richard Chamberlain in the 1960s.

(He is best known for television, so I extract this segment from Wikipedia).


Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts was a prime time television talent contest, that ran from 1946 to 1958. The winner got a week's work on Godfrey's morning television program, which was simulcast on radio. Berry won in 1957, performed his week on the show, and was then asked back for six more weeks. He traveled with Godfrey and performed on remote broadcasts in an Omaha stock yard, in Seattle at a lumber camp, at the Boeing aircraft plant, and at the San Diego Zoo. Berry came up with a new routine for every show, which aired daily.[1]


Ken Berry and Carol Burnett in Once Upon a Mattress in 1972

The Billy Barnes Review was popular with Hollywood, and one evening Carol Burnett was in Los Angeles and saw Berry in the show. She was appearing on The Garry Moore Show in New York and convinced the producers to sign Berry as a guest star. Burnett became a key ally for Berry, using him on her own special, which eventually became CBS's The Carol Burnett Show. Ken was one of Burnett's most frequent guest stars along with Jim Nabors and Steve Lawrence. In 1972, Ken and Carol appeared together in the 1972 color remake of Burnett's Broadway hit, Once Upon A Mattress for CBS.[2]

A notable dramatic performance by Berry was 1982's TV movie Eunice, which was based on The Carol Burnett Show sketch, The Family. The Family was somewhat of a pilot for Mama's Family. Berry played Phillip, Eunice's brother, in the special; however he went on to play Vinton, a different brother, on Mama's Family.

His collaboration with Carol Burnett continued with the 1993 Long Beach theatrical production of From the Top.[2]

The Billy Barnes Review also led to another important connection in his career when he was spotted by Lucille Ball. Ball quickly asked him to join her new talent development program at Desilu, similar to the "talent pools" – known as talent "programs" – that the other studios had. He was under contract with Desilu for six months, performing for both Ball and Barnes at the same time. The reviews for The Billy Barnes Review were largely positive, and additional investors contributed the extra money needed to move the show from the York Playhouse to Broadway,[3] which meant he had to take leave from Desilu.

After returning from New York in 1960, Berry was brought back to Desilu to play Woody, a bell hop, in ten episodes of CBS's The Ann Sothern Show which was set in a New York hotel called the Bartley House. The character Woody served as a "Greek chorus of one" on the series.

In 1968, Ball asked Berry to guest star on The Lucy Show, where he played a bank client needing a loan to start a dance studio. He performed a tribute to the Fred Astaire number "Steppin' Out with My Baby" and a duet with Ball for a rendition of "Lucy's Back in Town".

After numerous smaller roles, Berry was cast as one of three comic relief characters on Dr. Kildare, from 1961 to 1966. A regular on the series, Berry played Dr. Kapish. He also had a role on The Dick Van Dyke Show as a dance instructor several times.
F-Troop and Mayberry R.F.D.


Ken Berry, Andy Griffith and Buddy Foster in Mayberry R.F.D., 1968

Berry continued doing guest roles, but while performing a small part on the short-lived George Burns-Connie Stevens sitcom Wendy & Me, both Burns and Stevens recommended him for the pilot of F-Troop for ABC, a western spoof where he played the accident-prone Captain Parmenter—his first weekly role starring in a sitcom.

Berry's co-stars were Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch. Berry called his time on F-Troop "two years of recess"[1] as the entire cast spent time between takes trying to make each other laugh. His grace and agility allowed him to perform choreographed pratfalls over hitching posts, sabers, and trash cans.

In 1967, during the second year of F-Troop, Dick Linke – who was Berry's manager, and also managed Andy Griffith and Jim Nabors – pitched an F-Troop stage show to Bill Harrah, founder of Harrah's Entertainment, which included a casino and hotel in Reno, Nevada. Harrah went for it, and Berry, Larry Storch, Forrest Tucker, and James Hampton put together a show, hiring writers and a choreographer to assist. While performing the Reno show they received word that F-Troop had been canceled due to a financial dispute between the production company and the studio.

The next year Berry was cast in the featured role of Sam Jones, a widowed farmer, on the last few episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. He took the lead role on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D.. In September 1968, Berry led the cast of Mayberry R.F.D., as Griffith's character receded. Most of the regular characters stayed with the show. Andy and wife Helen left after a few episodes into season two. Series writers used Berry's "trouper" talents in stories about church revues and talent contests. On the 1970 Mayberry R.F.D. episode "The Charity", he and co-star Paul Hartman performed a soft shoe routine. Berry sometimes ended a show on the porch at dusk, serenading others with such songs as "Carolina Moon". In spite of finishing 15th place for season three, Mayberry R.F.D. was canceled in 1971 in what was called "the rural purge", where shows set in a bucolic locale (The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction) were replaced with the more "hip" fare of Norman Lear (All In The Family) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
After Mayberry R.F.D., Berry starred in several made-for-TV movies, and his own summer replacement variety show on ABC called The Ken Berry 'Wow' Show in 1972, which ran for five episodes. This show was an launching pad for future stars Steve Martin, Cheryl Ladd and Teri Garr.

In 1973 Sherwood Schwartz wrote a Brady Bunch spin-off called Kelly's Kids, which featured Berry as the adoptive father of three diverse boys (black, white, and Asian). The pilot failed to interest ABC.

Over the next two decades Berry guest starred on many shows, including The Bob Newhart Show, The Julie Andrews Hour, several Mitzi Gaynor specials, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, The Donny & Marie Show, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, CHiPs, and The Golden Girls.

Mama's Family

In 1983, Berry was cast as Vinton Harper in Mama's Family, a spin-off from The Carol Burnett Show with comic actors including Vicki Lawrence, Dorothy Lyman, Rue McClanahan, Betty White, and Beverly Archer during six seasons of the show. Mama's Family aired on NBC from 1983 to 1984 and in repeats until 1985. It was then picked up for first-run syndication from 1986 to 1990. The run totaled 130 episodes.

During and after Mama's Family, Berry toured the U.S. in various theatrical performances, including multiple performances of Sugar with co-stars such as Donald O'Connor, Mickey Rooney, Soupy Sales, and Bobby Morse, The Music Man with Susan Watson (Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi were in the chorus), I Do! I Do! with Loretta Swit, and Gene Kelly's A Salute to Broadway with Howard Keel and Mimi Hines. Kelly, who was Berry's idol, was set to direct the production, but fell ill.[1]