{"id":27732,"date":"2013-04-12T15:19:43","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T19:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=27732"},"modified":"2013-04-12T15:19:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T19:19:43","slug":"jonathan-winters-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2013\/04\/12\/jonathan-winters-87\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Winters, 87"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/jonathan_winters.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-27734\" alt=\"jonathan_winters\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/jonathan_winters-240x300.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/jonathan_winters-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/jonathan_winters.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a>Being unable to afford a watch led him to enter a contest where one was a prize. Winning that contest led him to a career as a disc jockey in his native Dayton, Ohio. A disagreement over money with the radio station led him to move to New York City to try his hand at being a professional entertainer. And that move led to immortality for Jonathan Winters.<\/p>\n<p>Winters\u00a0became\u00a0one of the most renown comedians of the 1950s, employing a manic wit, skill at improvisation and the ability to create memorable characters such as Maude Frickert and Elwood P. Suggins. The comedian became a big star on the comedy club\u00a0and\u00a0talk show circuit, becoming a favored guest on both the Jack Paar and Johnny Carson versions of\u00a0<strong>The Tonight Show<\/strong>. His work during his career served as an inspiration to a whole generation of comedians, most notable Robin Williams.<\/p>\n<p>His first film was a doozy: he starred as Lennie Pike in the memorable\u00a0<strong>It&#8217;s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad<\/strong> <strong>World<\/strong>. He followed up that film with roles in fare such as\u00a0<strong>The Loved One,\u00a0<\/strong><strong>The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming<\/strong>\u00a0and <strong>Moon Over Parador<\/strong>.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To a younger generation, he became known for his role as Mirth on\u00a0the\u00a0ABC sitcom\u00a0<strong>Mork &amp; Mindy<\/strong>, the son of Williams&#8217; Mork character.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, Winters worked extensively providing voice-work for animation, most notably providing the voice of Grandpa Smurf in the\u00a0<strong>Smurfs\u00a0<\/strong>TV show and Papa Smurf in\u00a0<strong>The Smurfs\u00a0<\/strong>film. His voice will\u00a0be\u00a0heard in July&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>The Smurfs 2<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">The influential comedian succumbs to natural causes. <\/div>\n<p> <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2013\/04\/12\/jonathan-winters-87\/\" title=\"Jonathan Winters, 87\">[click for more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[6342,4010,6343],"series":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-obituary-news","8":"tag-its-a-mad","9":"tag-mad","10":"tag-mad-world"},"aioseo_notices":[],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":false,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27732"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=27732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}