I didn't have anything to say about Doris Day that everyone else wasn't saying but I may have just enough to justify a post here about Tim Conway. I've met a lot of funny people in my life but I can't think of one who was more naturally-funny than Tim Conway. In a way, it's both unfair and appropriate that so many people think of him mainly as "That guy who made Harvey Korman break up laughing on The Carol Burnett Show." It's unfair because those were cheap, easy laughs and Conway was hilarious in so many other ways.
But it's also appropriate because he made just about everyone around him break up laughing, myself included. The few occasions when I spent any amount of time with him, I was laughing and he wasn't even trying. That was just the way he was, the way he talked.
One of our last encounters was at a wake for Chuck McCann's son Sean. The room was full of comedians but you wouldn't have known it from the mood, which was understandably funereal. Laughing out loud was not forbidden but it sure would have seemed indecorous. I got to talking with Tim and it struck me that he was trying real hard not to be funny and not to call attention to himself at a ceremony that was only about Chuck and his family.
And that was clearly hard for Tim Conway…which struck me as funny.
Those sketches on the Burnett show were controversial within the TV community and especially on the staff of that show. At the dress rehearsal, which had a live audience present and was taped, Conway and the others would adhere to the script. Since Korman knew what was coming and it had been rehearsed that way before, he rarely broke up or broke character. Afterwards, Conway would check with the director and ask, "Did you get it?" If the director affirmed he had an airable "straight" version of the sketch, Conway was permitted to screw around during the final taping, adding in things Harvey didn't expect. It usually meant Harvey would be reduced to helpless tears of laughter.
The working premise was that in editing, they'd look at both versions and decide which to air. The nearly-unanimous verdict of the staff was that the first version, where they actually did the script, was a much better sketch by every measure except which one the audience would enjoy more. So they almost always broadcast the second. Gary Belkin, who was one of the show's writers — often a writer on the sketch in question — was constantly pissed about this. He once told me, "It was usually a choice between a well-written sketch and a Bloopers episode and they decided audiences would rather see the Bloopers version."
Belkin added, "The shame of it was that Tim was always better in the first one. People didn't get to see what a great comic actor he was when he wasn't focusing on trying to make Harvey break up."
Of course, Tim Conway showed how good he was in other places. He did movies (including a couple of underrated ones with Don Knotts) and was on other variety shows. He did his Dorf videos and he had an amazing number of TV series: McHale's Navy (1962-1966), Rango (1967), The Tim Conway Show (1970), The Tim Conway Comedy Hour (also 1970), The Tim Conway Show (1980) and Ace Crawford, Private Eye (1983). My then-girlfriend Bridget had a tiny, uncredited-and-usually-cut recurring role on Ace Crawford and I visited the set once. Though the first episode had yet to air, Tim was making jokes about how he hoped this one would last long enough to time a hard-boiled egg.
In addition to the above shows, Tim was in a staggering number of other shows and unsold pilots because everyone thought he was hilarious. They just couldn't figure out how to package it into a TV series.
Then for many years, he toured America with a show that featured Harvey Korman and himself, usually accompanied by a friend of mine, Louise DuArt. Louise would do her stand-up routine and also assume Carol Burnett's roles in sketches recycled from the Burnett program. Conway's company produced and booked most of these shows, renting the halls, managing the publicity and selling Dorf videos and other "merch" in the lobbies. They were wildly successful (and lucrative) and the two I attended were packed with very happy audience members. When Harvey insisted on cutting back and taking it easy, Tim did the shows with Don Knotts and later with Chuck McCann until his own health forced him to take it easy.
The last few years, it's been common knowledge that he was failing. In 2013, I attended an event where he and Carol Burnett chatted and though I tried to say it nicely in the post, it was obvious something was the matter with Tim. A few years ago when he was not present for a big, televised salute to The Carol Burnett Show, you knew he had to be in pretty bad shape.
He was just a little oasis of joy whenever he appeared. I'd close by saying we're going to miss him but we've been missing him for over a decade now. Just a funny, funny man.