School, college and other closings for Monday

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support


      LOS ANGELES (AP) -  Tom Bosley, whose long acting career was
highlighted by his hugely popular role as the understanding father
on television's nostalgic, top-rated 1970s comedy series "Happy
Days," died Tuesday. He was 83.


      Bosley died of heart failure at a hospital near his Palm Springs
home. Bosley's agent, Sheryl Abrams, said he was also battling lung
cancer.


      TV Guide ranked Bosley's Happy Days character No. 9 on its list
of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" in 2004. The show
debuted in 1974 and ran for 11 seasons.


      After "Happy Days" ended, Bosley went on to a recurring role
in "Murder, She Wrote" as Sheriff Amos Tucker. He also was the
crime-solving priest in television's "The Father Dowling
Mysteries," which ran from 1989 to 1991.


      When he was first offered the costarring role in "Happy Days,"
a series about teenage life in the 1950s, he turned it down.


      "After rereading the pilot script," he recalled in a 1986
interview, "I changed my mind because of a scene between Howard
Cunningham and Richie. The father/son situation was written so
movingly, I fell in love with the project."


      Propelled by the nation's nostalgia for the simple pleasures of
the 1950s, "Happy Days," which debuted in 1974, slowly built to
hit status, becoming television's top-rated series by its third
season.


      It made a star of Henry Winkler, who played hip-talking,
motorcycle-riding hoodlum Arthur "Fonzi" Fonzarelli. His image
initially clashed with that of Richie and his "straight" friends.
But over the show's 11-season run Fonzarelli would transform
himself from high school dropout to successful businessman.


      After "Happy Days" ended, Bosley went on to a recurring role
in "Murder, She Wrote" as Sheriff Amos Tucker, who was often
outsmarted by Angela Lansbury's mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher.


      His own series, "The Father Dowling Mysteries," ran from 1989
to 1991. The avuncular Father Frank Dowling was assisted in his
detective work by nun Sister Steve, played by Tracy Nelson.


      Although "Happy Days" brought him his widest fame, Bosley had
made his mark on Broadway 15 years before when he turned in a Tony
Award-winning performance in the title role in "Fiorello!" He
also was the crime-solving priest in television's "The Father
Dowling Mysteries."


      His Broadway triumph depicted the life of New York's colorful
reformist mayor of the 1930s and '40s, Fiorello La Guardia.


      For two years, Bosley stopped the show every night when he sang
in several languages, depicting La Guardia during the years the
future mayor worked at New York's Ellis Island, aiding arriving
immigrants.


      The play won a Pulitzer Prize and Bosley received the Tony for
best actor in a musical.


      After failing to duplicate his success in "Fiorello!," Bosley
moved to Hollywood in 1968. He would not return to Broadway until
1994 when he originated the role of Belle's father in Disney's
production of "Beauty and the Beast."


      In Hollywood, the rotund character actor found steady work
appearing in the occasional movie and as a regular on weekly TV
shows starring Debbie Reynolds, Dean Martin, Sandy Duncan and
others.


      During the 1990s, Bosley toured in "Beauty and the Beast" and
"Show Boat," playing Captain Andy in the latter.


      Bosley made only a handful of theatrical movies. Among them:
"Love With the Proper Stranger," "Divorce American Style,"
"The Secret War of Henry Frigg," "Yours, Mine and Ours."


      Born in Chicago in 1927, Bosley served in the Navy before
returning to his hometown to study at De Paul University. Intrigued
with acting, he enrolled at the Radio Institute of Chicago and
began appearing in radio dramas. He made his theatrical debut in a
production of "Golden Boy."


      After moving to New York, he studied at the Actors Studio under
Lee Strasberg.


      After making his off-Broadway debut in "Thieves Highway" in
1955, he struggled to find other acting jobs, supporting himself as
a temporary office worker, a doorman at Central Park's Tavern on
the Green and a hat checker at Lindy's deli.


      Bosley married dancer Jean Eliot in 1962 and the couple had one
child, Amy. Two years after his wife's death in 1978, Bosley
married actress-producer Patricia Carr, who had three daughters
from a previous marriage.


      Associated Press Writer Bob Thomas contributed.
      

Gallery

Tom Bosley, whose long acting career was
highlighted by his hugely popular role as the understanding father
on television's nostalgic, top-rated 1970s comedy series "Happy
Days," died Tuesday. He was 83.

'Happy Days' dad Tom Bosley dead at 83

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox