In the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Winters was a frequent guest on “The Andy Williams Show,” “The Tonight Show” and “Hollywood Squares.” He played Robin Williams’s extraterrestrial baby son, Mearth, on the final season of “Mork & Mindy,” and he kept busy with voice-over work in animated television series and films. “I don’t do jokes,” he once said. Chris Moore, director emeritus of the council, presented Winters in a 1984 performance at Memorial Hall that was notable for Winters bringing the News-Sun onto stage and commenting, in character, on the news of the day.
His survivors include their two children, Jonathan Winters IV, of Camarillo, Calif., known as Jay, and Lucinda, of Santa Barbara, Calif.; and several grandchildren. In other words, he made a brilliant guest, firing comedy in short bursts, but a problematic host or actor. “Jonathan taught me,” Mr. Williams told the correspondent Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes,” “that the world is open for play, that everything and everybody is mockable, in a wonderful way.”, Jonathan Winters, Unpredictable Comic and Master of Improvisation, Dies at 87. Gradually he developed a gallery of characters, which expanded when he had his own television shows, beginning with the 15-minute “Jonathan Winters Show,” which ran from 1956 to 1957. Beckley later shared an apartment with Winters in New York when Beckley was working for Manufacturers Hanover Trust and Winters was appearing in night clubs.
A poor student, Mr. Winters enlisted in the Marines before finishing high school and during World War II served as a gunner on the aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard in the Pacific. Eileen Ann Schauder November 3, 1924 Dayton, Ohio, USA. He couldn’t stop performing.
Eileen Ann Schauder The interview proved to be Winters’ last with his hometown newspaper.
“The characters are my jokes.” At the same time, unlike many comedians reacting to the Eisenhower era, he found his source material in human behavior rather than politics or current events, but in him the spectacle of human folly provoked glee rather than righteous anger. The family’s fortunes collapsed with the Depression. He departed for the clubs of New York City in 1953. There, he studied art at the Dayton Art Institute and met Eileen Schauder, who would become his wife of 60 years until her death from breast cancer. Jonathan Harshman Winters was born on Nov. 11, 1925, in Dayton, Ohio, where his alcoholic father (“a hip Willy Loman,” according to Mr. Winters) worked as an investment broker and his grandfather, a frustrated comedian, owned the Winters National Bank. His brilliant turns as a guest on programs like “The Steve Allen Show” and “The Tonight Show” — in both the Jack Paar and Johnny Carson eras — kept him in constant demand. But a successful television series eluded him, as did a Hollywood career, despite memorable performances in films like “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” “The Loved One” and “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.”.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jonathan Winters, the cherub-faced comedian whose breakneck improvisations and misfit characters inspired the likes of Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, has died.
“Mother and Dad didn’t understand me; I didn’t understand them,” he told Jim Lehrer on “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” in 1999. (age 84)
A one-man sketch factory, Mr. Winters could re-enact Hollywood movies, complete with sound effects, or create sublime comic nonsense with simple props like a pen-and-pencil set. He was survived by his two children, Jonathan ("Jay") Winters IV and Lucinda Winters, and five grandchildren. Jay Winters is an art director, known for Dream On (1990). Scripts stifled him. Improv comedian inspired a generation of performers.
2009
Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, to Alice Kilgore Rodgers, who later became a radio personality, and her husband Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an insurance agent who later became an investment broker. ), Winters also was part of the all-star cast of Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton and the Three Stooges that made the 1963 movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”. Dayton, Ohio, USA, January 11,
Eileen Winters was born on November 3, 1924 in Dayton, Ohio, USA as Eileen Ann Schauder. In 1959 he suffered a nervous breakdown onstage at the hungry i in San Francisco and briefly spent time in a mental hospital. Winters, 87, died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., long-time family friend Joe Petro III said.
Mother, with Jonathan Winters, of son Jay Winters and daughter Lucinda Winters. Contribute to this page. The comedian’s son, Jay, and daughter, Lucinda, were with their father, Petro said. The unpredictable, often surreal quality of his humor had a powerful influence on later comedians like Robin Williams but made him hard to package as an entertainer.
Almost anything (that came up) would remind him of something else, and he might go into a little act, leaving most of us in stitches.”. Jay Winters is an art director, known for Dream On (1990). The oil painting by Winters, not currently on view at the museum, is titled “The First and Last Day of Spring,” and was painted in 1983. Jonathan Winters, the rubber-faced comedian whose unscripted flights of fancy inspired a generation of improvisational comics, and who kept television audiences in stitches with Main Street characters like Maude Frickert, a sweet-seeming grandmother with a barbed tongue and a roving eye, died on Thursday at his home in Montecito, Calif. — and overcame almost all of them.
A selection of comedic moments from Jonathan Winters's career. January 11, 2009 (age 84) Montecito, California, USA. 1924
Many of Mr. Winters’s characters — among them B. He was a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio (now part of JPMorgan Chase).
During his last interview with the News-Sun in 2011, Winters explained where those people could be found. He was 87. My God.
In “Seriously Funny,” his history of 1950s and 1960s comedians, Gerald Nachman described him, a bit floridly, as “part circus clown and part social observer, Red Skelton possessed by the spirit of Daumier.”. Winters dropped out of Springfield High School at 17 to fight in the Pacific with the Marine Corps, then returned to Dayton after World War II. — which he used to spice up his re-enactments of horror films, war films and westerns. Had a lot of problems — who the hell hasn’t? In 1999, he became only the second person to receive the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Richard Pryor was the first recipient, and the award since has been bestowed on such legends as Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, George Carlin and Bill Cosby. I’ve had a great career, a great time. Winters’ appearances on the late-night TV shows of Jack Paar, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson and others in the 1950s and ’60s became the stuff of legend, and his 12 comedy records for Verve each received Grammy nominations.
Star Sign. He often entertained his high school friends by imitating a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Springfield's Jonathan Winters sports the Wildcat blue at his home in Montecito, Calif. Photo by Michael Moriatis, special to the News-Sun. (Orkans aged backward, thus explaining the logic of Winters as Mork’s son. The Winters National Bank failed, and Jonathan’s parents divorced. Springfield News-Sun reporter Andrew McGinn spoke with Springfield’s Jonathan Winters for a lengthy interview in 2011. Jonathan Winters, the Springfield-raised comic genius who once told his wife he’d come back to Ohio and sell farm equipment if his comedy career in New York didn’t pan out, has died.
As channeled by Mr. Winters, Maude Frickert was a wild card. “There were a number of characters growing up that were like this,” he told the paper. Mr. Winters, a rotund man whose face had a melancholy basset-hound expression in repose, burst onto the comedy scene in the late 1950s and instantly made his mark as one of the funniest, least definable comics in a rising generation that included Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman and Bob Newhart.
He was 87.
Of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry,Winters had described his father as an alcoholic who had trouble h… November 3, Lucinda’s mother past away in 2009 at the age of 84 after a long battle of breast cancer. “I thought many times I wanted to come back,” he told the paper via phone from California, “especially after my wife died. “I’d make up people like Dr. Hardbody of the Atomic Energy Commission, or an Englishman whose blimp had crash-landed in Dayton,” he told U.S. News and World Report in 1988. He was among the last of his generation of comics and also notably struggled with bipolar disorder. His survivors include their two children, Jonathan Winters IV, of Camarillo, Calif., known as Jay, and Lucinda, of Santa Barbara, Calif.; and several grandchildren. Son of Jonathan Winters and Eileen Winters. As he told the Springfield News-Sun in 1955 — the year he happened to become a star on late-night TV — “If all else fails, I guess I might have to get that old bait shop going again out in Pitchin.”. Winters attended art school alumni reunions at the DAI and also donated one of his works to the museum in 1993. 1942-43 — Drops out of Springfield High School at age 17 to join the Marines and serve in World War II, 1946 — Studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, for a year before transferring to the art school at the Dayton Art Institute, 1948 — Marries Dayton native Eileen Schauder, 1953 — Moves to New York to pursue his career, 1956-57 — “Jonathan Winters Show” runs, followed by a series of NBC specials, 1960 — Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1963 — Stars in seminal comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and nominated for Golden Globe for his role, 1966-73 — Frequent guest on “The Dean Martin Comedy Hour”, 1967-69 — “The Jonathan Winters Show” airs, 1972-74 — “The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters” airs, 1974 — Receives honorary degree from University of Dayton, 1971-77 — Frequent guest of “Hollywood Squares”, 1979 — Receives honorary degree from Wittenberg University, 1981-82 — Stars as Mearth with Robin Williams on “Mork & Mindy”, 1984 — Performs a hometown show for the Springfield Arts Council at Springfield’s Memorial Hall, 1987 — Publishes “Winters’ Tales: Stories and Observations for the Unusual”, 1991-92 — Stars in TV series “Davis Rules,” wins an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role, 1999 — Is the second recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, second only to Richard Pryor, 2003 — Nominated for an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy for his role on the TV series “Life with Bonnie”, 2011 — Stars in “Certifiably Jonathan,” a mockumentary, 2011 — Performs Papa Smurf’s voice in “The Smurfs”. The painting also appears on the cover of the book “Hang-Ups: Paintings by Jonathan Winters.”. At the urging of his wife, Mr. Winters, whose art career seemed to be going nowhere, entered a talent contest in Dayton with his eye on the grand prize, a wristwatch, which he needed.
Addison “Skip” Beckley, of Springfield, recalled Winters’ classroom antics at Elmwood School on Springfield’s east side. Jay Winters, Art Director: Dream On. “People that were from Enon or Urbana. His mother took him to Springfield, where she did factory work but eventually became the host of a women’s program on a local radio station. But I had a hell of a roll. After two years at a Columbus television station, he left for New York in 1953 to break into network radio. The conventional television variety show did not suit Mr. Winters, but film did not seem the right medium for him either. Moore then was tasked with calling Winters recently to see if he’d be interested in coming back. I mean, outside of the weather, that’s about all you’ve got here. He was always on. Other characters, like the couturier Lance Loveguard and Princess Leilani-nani, the world’s oldest hula dancer, sprang from a secret compartment deep within Mr. Winters’s inventive brain.