Stage actor Alan Sues, known for his role in “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In”, died Thursday due to cardiac arrest at the age of 85. Sues passed away in his home in West Hollywood, the AP reports.
“He was sitting in a recliner watching TV with his dachshund Doris who he loved in his lap,” Michael Gregg Michaud, close friend, told the Associated Press.
Sues originally began his acting career on Broadway’s 1953 classic “Tea and Sympathy” later taking his acting chops to television where he starred as “Big Al” and “Uncle Al the Kiddies Pal” on Laugh-In, a television sensation that also introduced Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin among others.
“Alan Sues was one of those guys even funnier in person than on camera,” close friend Ruth Buzzi said via Twitter. “Across a dinner table, over the phone … hysterical. We’ll miss him.”
Executive producer George Schlatter said sues was “a free spirit,” a “love child” and an “outrageous human being” due in part to his over-the-top persona both on-screen and off.
“He was a delight; he was an upper,” Schlatter told the Los Angeles Times. “He walked on the stage and everybody just felt happy.”
Sues had frequently played flamboyantly gay characters, but close friend Michaud said he’d often hide behind gay personas to cover his own insecurities regarding his sexuality.
“He felt like he couldn’t publicly come out,” Michaud said. “He felt like people wouldn’t accept him.”
A memorial for the actor has not been planned. Sues leaves behind a sister-in-law, two nieces, and a nephew.
