Ken Berry, R.I.P.

That's me in the center flanked by Ken Berry and his F Troop co-star Larry Storch at a birthday party for Larry back in 2008. Larry is still with us at the age of 95. Sad to report, Ken died today at the age of 85. I saw it announced on Twitter by his former wife, the wonderful Jackie Joseph.

There doesn't seem to be a good, well-researched obit up yet. I'll link to one when there is and you'll be amazed at this guy's credits. In his teen years, he was touring the country and getting reviews that usually called him the next Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. He was a top song-and-dance man but he also had a good flair for comedy. He gained fame as a performer with "special services" while in the army and his career was even promoted by his Sergeant, who was — believe it or not — Leonard Nimoy. Later, he became a favorite of Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball. Burnett featured him often as a guest star on her popular series and added him to the cast of the "Mama's Family" family.

Before that, he was a star of the famous Billy Barnes Revues (that's where he met Jackie) and that led to many TV roles and to him starring in F Troop as the hapless Captain Parmenter. If you watch those shows, you will sometimes see Berry pull off some amazing physical comedy.

I had the chance to meet him a few times and found him to be very humble…but still a little pissed that CBS had canceled Mayberry R.F.D. back in 1971. That was the successor to The Andy Griffith Show which kept most of that show's supporting cast with Berry plunked into a central role like Andy had. It was axed not because it was unpopular but because it was rural and that was the year CBS didn't want rural shows on its schedule even if they were winning their time slots. He said, "We played by their rules, we won by their rules and then they changed their rules."

Until the last decade or so when he began to have some health problems, he was one of those performers who was always working. If you want to be impressed, go look at the partial list of his TV appearances on his Wikipedia page. You've got to be really talented to work that much and he sure was. If you still don't believe me, take a look at this clip, which I think may be from The Ed Sullivan Show The Hollywood Palace. And stay tuned to see some of it again in slow-motion…