Tim Conway, whose rose to fame for his many notable roles in TV series and sketch comedies, has passed away, after suffering complications from normal pressure hydrocephalus. The comedian was 85 years old.
Conway first came to prominence in 1962, when he co-starred in the comedy series McHale’s Navy, along with Ernest Borgnine. The sitcom was fairly popular, and even resulted in two feature films being released, one also titled McHale’s Navy and a sequel, McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force.
Conway gained even more notoriety when he started appearing in the sketch comedy series The Carol Burnett Show. Conway was a frequent guest performer from seasons 1-8 of the show, eventually being promoted to a full-time cast member in season 9, through the end of the series’ run.
The widely popular Carol Burnett Show showed off Conway’s talents as a sketch performer, which led him to be a recurring cast member on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In as well as gaining his own show briefly, The Tim Conway Show.
Conway did not have a large movie career, mostly sticking to television, though he did have a fair share of movie roles. He most notably teamed up with comedian Don Knotts for two films by Disney - The Apple Dumpling Gang, and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. Conway and Knotts’ comedic styles proved to match well, so Conway wrote two more films for them to star in, The Prize Fighter and The Private Eyes.
Conway’s most notable role in his later years was voicing the character Barnacle Boy on SpongeBob SquarePants. One half of a semi-retired senior citizen crime-fighting duo, the role paired Conway up once again with his McHale’s Navy co-star Ernest Borgnine, who voiced Mermaid Man. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy proved so popular that they appeared fourteen times on the show total, and were two of the more popular supporting characters on SpongeBob. After Borgnine’s death in 2012, the characters were reduced to non-speaking cameos.
Conway leaves behind a legacy that will be remembered by both older and younger generations, filled with plenty of laughs.
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