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Bill Daily, a comic actor known for his second banana roles and quirky humor on two longtime TV series, "I Dream of Jeannie" and "The Bob Newhart Show," died Tuesday at his son's house near Santa Fe, NM He was 91 years old.
His son, J. Patrick Daily, confirmed the death and said there was no specific cause.
Mr. Daily began his career as a musician, writer and director and did not start playing until he was 30 years old. His eccentric and out-of-the-box vibe style and comic style made him a fan favorite in the popular but slender paper "I Dream of Jeannie" in the 1960s and the sophisticated "Bob Newhart Show" in the 1970s. then played a psychiatrist on the sitcom of the 1980s "ALF".
He excelled as a clumsy and awkward character who often stole the scenes in which he appeared with Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden, stars of "Jeannie" and Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette in "The Bob Newhart Show".
On "Jeannie," which aired from 1965 to 1970, Mr. Daily was selected as Major Roger Healey, an astronaut whose best friend was another astronaut, Tony Nelson, played by Hagman. Nelson was the "master" of a 2,000-year-old genius played by Eden.
The highlights of many episodes were the comical scenes between Hagman and Mr. Daily, which they often improvised. The sitcom remains popular on the chains of nostalgia, 50 years after its first broadcast.
Mr. Daily in 2007. (Fred Prouser / Reuters)
After guest roles in other programs, including "The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mr. Daily won a starring role in "The Bob Newhart Show" as the neurotic neighbor of Newhart's character, the psychologist Robert Hartley, and his wife, played by Pleshette.
As Howard Borden, Mr. Daily was continually referring to the Hartley's apartment, describing his last situation. He uttered the phrase "Hi, Bob" 118 times during the sitcom race from 1972 to 1978.
The mere appearance of Mr. Daily at the Hartley's door, with his clumsy gait and hand gestures, was often enough to provoke laughter.
"Bill was totally unaware of how he got out," said one of the series' writers, Tom Patchett, at The Hollywood Reporter. "I asked him once:" Where did you come with this silly walk? He said, "What are you talking about? "I said," The way you go in the room like a giraffe. "It's my walk."
Howard was plagued by a long list of fears and other problems and had no idea about them. In a joke, he was always short of food. In one episode, he gets up from the table to have a dessert.
"Howard, how long does dessert take?" Asks Newhart.
"Well, not too long ago," says Daily. "I just have to buy it at the store."
"Come back here, Howard.
Another time, Newhart's character admits to having doubts about his career: "Howard, I guess I just lost the ability to communicate with people."
"Yeah, well," Howard said, "I do not understand what you're saying."
The writing on the "Newhart Show" was so subtle, Daily said, that viewers needed to be very careful about understanding humor.
"People in the street stop me and say, 'Hello Howard,' he told the Toronto Star in 1988. They know this character, not me."
William Edward Daily was born on August 30, 1927 in Des Moines. His father abandoned the family soon after his birth and his mother worked in factories.
He grew up mainly in Chicago, where he became an expert in music and humor, partly to hide his dyslexia, which made reading difficult. He became friends with Newhart in adolescence, when both worked in a bowling alley.
At the age of 16, Mr. Daily played bass in jazz bands and wrote comedy routines for his band. He played in the group of a precursor of "The Tonight Show" in the late 1940s.
After serving in the army during the Korean War, Mr. Daily began working on television in Chicago as a writer, announcer, room manager and director. All the while, he wrote and performed comedies inspired by Bob Hope and Jack Benny. In one of his routines, he played a ventriloquist whose model refused to speak.
Later, he became writer and director for host Mike Douglas in Cleveland, before moving to California in the early 1960s to become a columnist and screenwriter for Steve Allen.
Mr. Daily had small roles in the sitcoms "Bewitched" and "My Mother the Car" before Sidney Sheldon, creator of "I Dream of Jeannie", called him to play Maj Healey.
In the 1980s, Mr. Daily was chosen to star in several series of comedies, including "Aloha Paradise" and "Starting From Scratch", which were soon canceled. He played a recurring role in "ALF", a comedy of the late 1980s about a fur creature arriving from space.
In the 1980s, he moved to Albuquerque, where he was creative director of a theater and briefly presented a radio show.
His marriages with Patricia Anderson and Vivian Sanchez ended in a divorce. His third wife, the former Rebecca Duemler, died in 2010. A daughter of her first marriage, Kimberly Daily, died several years ago.
Among his survivors are his son, J. Patrick Daily, a key film actor, Lamy, N.M.
Mr. Daily appeared in dozens of roles in other shows, but he remained best known for his weird characters.
In an episode of "The Bob Newhart Show", Howard returns home to find that his apartment was stripped of everything except a broken vacuum.
"I do not know what to do," he says. "I mean … how to decorate an apartment around a vacuum cleaner?
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