Laugh-In Actor Alan Sues Dead at 85

Played over-the-top flamboyant characters on the hit sketch show

Alan Sues, whose clownish comedic style was a mainstay on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in” in the late sixties, has died at his home in West Hollywood at the age of 85.

Sues’ friend and administrator, Michael Michaud, told the New York Times that the cause of death appeared to be a heart attack.

Although Sues appeared in films, on Broadway and on other television programs, he is best remembered for his ground-breaking work on “Laugh-in” which was one of the top-rated shows during its five and a half year run.

He was part of the ensemble cast that include Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson and Jo Anne Worley.

He was actually cast on the show by producer George Schlatter who had seen him in an off-Broadway play opposite Worley, the newspaper reported.

He played over-the-top characters such as Uncle Al the Kiddies’ Pal–a hung-over children’s performer; an effeminate sportscaster called Big Al and a drag queen imitation of Worley’s character on the show.

Sues never disclosed that he was gay although he tended to play stereotypically gay characters—according to Michaud who told the newspaper that Sues was afraid if he told the truth about his sexual orientation, it would end his career.

Sues was born in Ross, California and he served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

After the war he used his veterans’ benefits to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse and later moved to New York where he appeared on Broadway, in Elia Kazan’s play, “Tea and Sympathy.”

While there, he met and married a dancer, Phyllis Sues. Although they were divorced in the late 1950’s,
he sat down with her and talked about their meeting and marriage years later in an interview she posted on her own website.

Sues joined “Laugh In” in its second season and quickly became a featured player.

Sues later said that his “Laugh In” performances led many young gay men to come up to him and tell him how important he was to them because he was the only gay man they could see on television.

But the Laugh In gig also left him typecast as a wacky comedian.

He had appeared in a number of dramatic roles before the iconic sketch comedy show but he told the Los Angeles Times in 1993 that afterward audiences would not accept him in anything but comedies
.
He also appeared in such television sitcoms as “Punky Brewster” and “ Sabrina the Teenage Witch” and he made a commercial for Peter Pan peanut butter.
 

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