Author: William Hughes / Source: News
Bill Daily, the veteran sitcom actor who played Roger Healey and airline navigator Howard Borden, two of the most beloved affable goofballs in the history of television comedy, has died. According to Variety, Daily was 91.
Although he started out as a stand-up, and worked as behind-the-camera talent in Chicago-area TV—where he first met friend and future co-star Bob Newhart—Daily eventually made the move into acting.
After a few appearances on sitcoms like Bewitched and My Mother The Car, he broke big in 1965, when he was cast in a regular role on Sidney Sheldon’s I Dream Of Jeannie.Daily later noted that his take on Major Healey—who, like his later Newhart Show character, Howard, was a variant on the old “annoying sitcom neighbor” archetype—was based largely on an impression of Bob Hope, playing him as an occasionally womanizing, scheming dope who nevertheless charmed audiences on a regular basis. Daily ended up spending five seasons on the series, staying with it until its cancellation in 1970. (He also happily returned for multiple reunion specials across the following years).
Two years later, Daily…
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