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Bill Howard, 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 a 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 out in 1965, when he was cast in a regular role on Sidney Sheldon's I Dream Of Jeannie.
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 on an occasion womanizing, scheming dope who nevertheless charmed hearings on a regular basis. Daily ended up spending five seasons on the series, staying with it in 1970. (He also happily returned for multiple meetings over the following years).
Two years later, Newhart on his self-titled and critically beloved sitcom. As Howard Borden, a fellow airline navigator, Daily dialed back some of his Jeannie character's more self-serving edges, investing the character instead with a clueless childishness that made him a perfect foil for reserved, psychologist Robert Hartley. Daily spent six years on the series, barking in the Hartley apartment, and coming to Bob to solve his ridiculous romantic woes.
But while his sidekick credentials were unquestionable, Daily's subsequent efforts to lead a series of his own never came to fruition. (Here's a quote from his Wikipedia page about his second such effort, 1988's Starting From Scratch: "It fared better than [earlier solo effort] Frye, and was canceled after one season. ") Still, he appeared regularly in guest star roles-including a semi-regular gig on ALF and a single-episode Newhart, riffing on his and his old-fashioned Daily Bill's Hocus-Pocus Gang. (Tragically, video of the specials does not appear to have made its way online.)
The Daily's Resume is shorter than one might expect; discounting his regular appearances on panel shows and the like, he only had 37 credits to his name, most of them only in an episode or two of a series. Still, as much as anyone in the sitcom's long history, he proved the creed of the TV great bananas, over and over again:
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