Legendary comedian Don Rickles dies at 90

LOS ANGELES — Don Rickles, the big-mouthed, bald-headed “Mr. Warmth” whose verbal assaults endeared him to audiences and peers and made him the acknowledged grandmaster of insult comedy, died Thursday. He was 90.

Rickles, who would have been 91 on May 8, suffered kidney failure and died Thursday morning at his home, said Paul Shefrin, his longtime publicist and friend.

For more than half a century, Rickles headlined casinos and nightclubs from Las Vegas to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and livened up late-night talk shows. No one was exempt from Rickles’ insults, not fans or presidents or such fellow celebrities as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Johnny Carson.

Despite jokes that from other comics might have inspired boycotts, he was one of the most beloved people in show business, idolized by everyone from Joan Rivers and Louis CK to Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman. He was a familiar face on the dais for the “Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts,” televised on NBC during the late 1970s and early ’80s (he was himself a roastee at one of the special events).

James Caan once said that Rickles helped inspire the blustering Sonny Corleone of “The Godfather.” An HBO special was directed by John Landis of “Animal House” fame and included tributes from Clint Eastwood, Sidney Poitier and Robert De Niro.

Carl Reiner would say he knew he had made it in Hollywood when Rickles made fun of him.

Rickles patented a confrontational style that stand-up performers still emulate, but one that kept him on the right side of trouble. He emerged in the late 1950s, a time when comics such as Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl were taking greater risks, becoming more politicized and more introspective.

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Rickles managed to shock his audiences without cutting social commentary or truly personal self-criticism. He operated under a code as old the Borscht Belt: Go far — ethnic jokes, sex jokes, ribbing Carson for his many marriages — but make sure everyone knows it’s for fun.

“I think the reason that (my act) caught on and gave me a wonderful career is that I was never mean-spirited,” he once said. “Not that you had to like it, but you had to be under a rock somewhere not to get it.”

When asked if he disliked the term “politically incorrect” as it applied to comedy, Rickles, in a 2001 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Rickles replied: “It doesn’t bother me one way or the other because I’m not what I call a “brain comedian.” Brain comedians are very funny. George Carlin, a wonderful artist, or Dennis Miller are brain comedians. They do a lot of brain stuff. I do everyday street stuff, the kind of stuff that the average guy will understand where I’m coming from.”

In a 2015 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Rickles explained his frenetic onstage comic style: “It seems that it’s all over the place, but I really have a beginning, a middle and an end. I never get out and free fall. And I don ‘t rehearse. To this day, with the exception of my television series, I’ve never had anything written for me. Onstage, I just make it up on the spur of the moment.”

In a 2015 interview with Closer Weekly, Rickles confirmed he would be reprising his role in “Toy Story 4,” which is slated to be released in 2019. “They just signed me to do the fourth Toy Story,” he exclusively told Closer. “We start [work on it] in September [2015], and I’m very delighted with that.” It’s not yet been confirmed if the comedian had completed his voiceover recordings at the time of his death.

Reaction to his passing on social media was heartfelt and swift:

According to Variety.com: ” Though he appeared in films and on television, Rickles’ mainstay was always nightclub performances, appearing in Las Vegas and elsewhere into his late 80s. He also found late success as the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the “Toy Story” films, which were exceptional box office performers, and popped up frequently on latenight talkshows. Rickles’ career had its ups and downs as comedic tastes changed, and his curmudgeonly persona was sometimes out of kilter with audience tastes, but he survived long after many of his contemporaries had disappeared into retirement. And when he was hot, he was a potent club headliner, insulting his audience with his two key signature phrases “dummy” and “hockey puck.”

His lifelong best friend and equally legendary comedian Bob Newhart was asked in a 2002 interview with the Chicago Sun-times, about the best advice he ever got from Rickles: “He’s never said anything profound in his life” Newhart said laughing. “We’ve been friends for more than 30 years so I can say this — his voice is like elevator music, it’s just always there. You hear it but you don ‘t really listen to it.”

To his great disappointment, Rickles was never able to transfer his success to a long-running weekly situation comedy. “The Don Rickles Show” lasted just one season (1972). “C.P.O. Sharkey,” in which he played an acid-tongued Navy chief petty officer, fared slightly better, airing from 1976 to 1978.

Rickles’ films ranged from comedies to dramas and included “Run Silent, Run Deep” (starring Clark Gable), “The Rat Race,” (Tony Curtis), “Kelly’s Heroes” (Clint Eastwood) and Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” (Robert De Niro). He also appeared in four “Beach Party” films in the 1960s and provided the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the animated “Toy Story” films.

Rickles set out to be a serious actor but had little luck finding acting jobs and supported himself by selling used cars, life insurance and cosmetics — badly, he said. (“I couldn’t sell air conditioners on a 98-degree day.”)

He finally decided to try comedy, appearing at small hotels in New York’s Catskill mountains and in rundown night clubs. The turning point came at a strip joint in Washington, D.C. “The customers were right on top of you, always heckling, and I gave it right back to them,” he recalled in 1982.

He married Barbara Sklar, his agent’s secretary, in 1965, and they had two children, actress Mindy Rickles and writer-producer Lawrence Rickles, who died of complications from pneumonia in 2011.

In a 1993 Associated Press interview, Rickles’ brassy voice softened when he was asked how he wanted people to remember him.

“If people know me well, they know I’m an honest friend. I’m emotional; I’m caring; I’m loyal. Loyalty in this business is very important.”