R.I.P.: Actor, Radio Personality Jack Riley Passes at 80

Jack Riley 1935-2016

Jack Riley, the veteran comic actor who appeared on “The Bob Newhart Show,” died Friday, August 19, 2016, according to multiple news sources. He was 80.

Riley’s wife Ginger Lawrence told Deadline that the actor died of pneumonia after a long illness.

He appeared on dozens of TV shows over a career that spanned five decades, but he may have been best known to television audiences as neurotic and self-absorbed patient Elliot Carlin on “The Bob Newhart Show.” He appeared in 49 episodes of the sitcom. The character was so popular he reprised the role on “St. Elsewhere” and “ALF.”

He was also familiar to younger audiences as the voice of Stu Pickles in “Rugrats” and its spinoff, “All Grown Up!”

He had recurring roles on several notable television comedies, including “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Night Court,” and “Son of the Beach.” On film he was a regular in Mel Brooks films like “High Anxiety,” “History of the World: Part I,” and “Spaceballs.”

Riley was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 30, 1935.  During the '60s, Riley became a popular radio personality in Cleveland, along with his radio partner and "straight man" Jeff Baxter; The Baxter & Riley Show on WERE 1300 AM featured not only music but comedy sketches and a slew of offbeat characters that Riley and Baxter voiced.

He then moved to Los Angeles where fellow Ohioan Tim Conway helped get him work as a writer.

He got his first semi-regular role in the sitcom “Occasional Wife” in 1966. He was a frequent sitcom guest star before his stint on “The Bob Newhart Show” and was even more in demand afterward. Between the 1960s and 1990s he logged guest appearances on “Hogan’s Heroes,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Barney Miller,” “Silver Spoons,” “Friends,” and “Seinfeld.”