In Remembrance: Ron Carey

     Ron Carey, the short comic actor who appeared in a handful of comedies directed by Mel Brooks, has passed away in Los Angeles on January 16, 2007. He was 71.

     Born Ronald Joseph Cicenia on December 11, 1935 in Newark, NJ, Carey grew up in a large Italian family. After earning a bachelor’s degree in communications from New Jersey’s Seaton Hall University in 1956, he headed to New York City to break into stand-up comedy. He would make his television debut a decade later performing stand-up on The Mike Douglas Show.

     Carey made his film debut as the Boston cabbie in the 1970 comedy The Out Of Towners. He followed that up with small roles in Who Killed Mary What’s ‘Er Name? and Made For Each Other (both 1971).

     Comedy director Mel Brooks cast Carey for a role in his comedy Silent Movie (1976). Impressed with his work, Brooks hired Carey for his next film, the Hitchcock spoof High Anxiety (1977), giving him the role of the photography-obsessed “driver and sidekick” Brophy. Brooks also cast Carey in the ancient Rome sequence of History Of The World Part 1 (1981).

     Carey’s biggest break came when he was cast as the patrolman-aspiring-to-police detective Levitt on the comedy series Barney Miller. Hired as a semi-regular in the show’s second season in 1976, he stayed with the program until its end in 1982.

     Carey also appeared in the comedies Fatso (1980) and Johnny Dangerously (1984). His final screen appearance was in the 1999 short Food For Thought where he starred opposite Rudy De Luca, whom also appeared in Silent Movie and High Anxiety.