Perry Cross, who served as Johnny Carson’s first producer on The Tonight Show before he exited to run an ABC program hosted by Jerry Lewis that came and went after 13 episodes, has died. He was 95.
Cross died March 9 of kidney cancer at a hospital in Los Angeles, his son, Larry Cross, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Cross started out producing Ernie Kovacs’ CBS weekday morning show in 1952 and also worked on The Red Skelton Hour, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Soupy Sales Show, Life With Linkletter, The Garry Moore Show and several Jonathan Winters live specials during his career.
Cross had been producing The Tonight Show in the immediate aftermath of host Jack Paar’s departure on March 30, 1962, guiding the NBC program in Hollywood and New York that featured guest hosts for six months until Carson took over.
NBC wanted Cross to be Carson’s producer,...
Cross died March 9 of kidney cancer at a hospital in Los Angeles, his son, Larry Cross, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Cross started out producing Ernie Kovacs’ CBS weekday morning show in 1952 and also worked on The Red Skelton Hour, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Soupy Sales Show, Life With Linkletter, The Garry Moore Show and several Jonathan Winters live specials during his career.
Cross had been producing The Tonight Show in the immediate aftermath of host Jack Paar’s departure on March 30, 1962, guiding the NBC program in Hollywood and New York that featured guest hosts for six months until Carson took over.
NBC wanted Cross to be Carson’s producer,...
- 4/4/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Joe Messina, the prolific guitarist whose work with the Funk Brothers can be heard on an array of Motown classics, died Monday, April 4, the Detroit Free Press reports. He was 93.
Messina died at his home in Northville, Michigan after a lengthy battle with kidney disease. Despite his long illness, Messina’s son, Joel, said his father had not only been living on his own up until a month ago, but he was still frequently inviting fellow musicians over to jam.
“As one of the original Funk Brothers, Joe Messina leaves...
Messina died at his home in Northville, Michigan after a lengthy battle with kidney disease. Despite his long illness, Messina’s son, Joel, said his father had not only been living on his own up until a month ago, but he was still frequently inviting fellow musicians over to jam.
“As one of the original Funk Brothers, Joe Messina leaves...
- 4/5/2022
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Soupy Sales was a slapstick comedian who elevated pie-throwing to an art form to become a cult icon with his children’s television programs in the 1960s and 1970s.
He was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina, on January 8, 1926. With his last name often mispronounced “Soupman”, he was dubbed with the nickname “Soupbone”, which eventually evolved into just “Soupy”. His brothers bore the dubious nicknames “Hambone” and “Chickenbone”. He began working in radio after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
He began a daily children’s television show, Soupy Sales Comics, for Detroit’s Wxyz-tv in 1953. He was Detroit’s top-rated television personality by 1955, when his show became known as The Soupy Sales Show. He shared the screen with such puppet pals as White Fang (”The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA”) and Black Tooth (”The Biggest and Sweetest Dog in the USA”), both...
He was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina, on January 8, 1926. With his last name often mispronounced “Soupman”, he was dubbed with the nickname “Soupbone”, which eventually evolved into just “Soupy”. His brothers bore the dubious nicknames “Hambone” and “Chickenbone”. He began working in radio after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
He began a daily children’s television show, Soupy Sales Comics, for Detroit’s Wxyz-tv in 1953. He was Detroit’s top-rated television personality by 1955, when his show became known as The Soupy Sales Show. He shared the screen with such puppet pals as White Fang (”The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA”) and Black Tooth (”The Biggest and Sweetest Dog in the USA”), both...
- 11/7/2009
- by Harris Lentz
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
Soupy Sales not only has one of the funniest scandals in TV history, but here's one that I'm surprised didn't get him and his ilk banned from all of television.
When The Soupy Sales Show was live, his staff set him up for a prank, according to an interview he did with NBC's Bob Costas. As he went into a commercial, he would hear a woman scream, open the door and see a pair of ladies' shoes being dragged out of the frame. But when he actually opened the door, all he saw was a woman wearing Only her shoes (I think, I never bothered to look at her feet).
This clip contains censored nudity. So if you're watching it at work, make sure you share it with everyone around you, especially the ladies.
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When The Soupy Sales Show was live, his staff set him up for a prank, according to an interview he did with NBC's Bob Costas. As he went into a commercial, he would hear a woman scream, open the door and see a pair of ladies' shoes being dragged out of the frame. But when he actually opened the door, all he saw was a woman wearing Only her shoes (I think, I never bothered to look at her feet).
This clip contains censored nudity. So if you're watching it at work, make sure you share it with everyone around you, especially the ladies.
Filed under: Video, Obituaries, Reality-Free
Permalink | Email this | | Comments...
- 10/23/2009
- by Danny Gallagher
- Aol TV.
Detroit – Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, has died. He was 83.Sales died Thursday night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, said his former manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, Usher said.At the peak of his fame in the 1950s and '60s, Sales was one of the best-known faces in the nation, Usher said."If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, no one would have recognized him as much as Soupy," Usher said.At the same time, Sales retained an openness to fans that turned every restaurant meal into an endless autograph-signing session, Usher said."He was just good to people," said Usher, a former jazz music producer who managed Sales in the 1950s and...
- 10/23/2009
- backstage.com
When I was a kid, I remember watching Soupy Sales. He had a children's show, The Soupy Sales Show, on channel five in the New York area and he was a wacky, funny guy. He had bizarre creatures around him, puppets named Pookie and White Fang and Black Tooth. Soupy did outrageous things and often ended up with a pie in the face. In a lot of ways, there might have been no PeeWee Herman if there hadn't been a Soupy Sales. In my memory, I always liked Soup and liked his show. On Thursday, Soupy Sales died at the age of 83.
In addition to The Soupy Sales Show, Soupy was a comedian. He played clubs and did shtick, and all through the 1960s and 1970s he was a regular on game shows, including What's My Line, To Tell the Truth, Match Game and Hollywood Squares.
Continue reading Comic Soupy Sales...
In addition to The Soupy Sales Show, Soupy was a comedian. He played clubs and did shtick, and all through the 1960s and 1970s he was a regular on game shows, including What's My Line, To Tell the Truth, Match Game and Hollywood Squares.
Continue reading Comic Soupy Sales...
- 10/23/2009
- by Allison Waldman
- Aol TV.
The comedy icon made pie-in-the-face gag a pop-culture phenomenon.
By Gil Kaufman
Soupy Sales in 2001
Photo: Scott Gries/ Getty Images
It was a simple gag, but one that made Soupy Sales a household name: a pie in the face, or 20,000 pies, to be exact. That slapstick comedic trick, along with a warehouse of goofy faces and wacky characters helped elevate Sales (born Milton Supman) to one of the country's most beloved comedians in the late 1950s. Sales died on Thursday at the age of 83 at a hospital in the Bronx, after several years of declining health.
Soupy Sales Remembered
"We have lost a comedy American icon," longtime friend and manager Paul Dver said, according to CNN. "I feel the personal loss, and I also feel the magic that he had around him being gone. That's a much more severe loss than a loss of a friend."
With his loose-limbed physicality and malleable face,...
By Gil Kaufman
Soupy Sales in 2001
Photo: Scott Gries/ Getty Images
It was a simple gag, but one that made Soupy Sales a household name: a pie in the face, or 20,000 pies, to be exact. That slapstick comedic trick, along with a warehouse of goofy faces and wacky characters helped elevate Sales (born Milton Supman) to one of the country's most beloved comedians in the late 1950s. Sales died on Thursday at the age of 83 at a hospital in the Bronx, after several years of declining health.
Soupy Sales Remembered
"We have lost a comedy American icon," longtime friend and manager Paul Dver said, according to CNN. "I feel the personal loss, and I also feel the magic that he had around him being gone. That's a much more severe loss than a loss of a friend."
With his loose-limbed physicality and malleable face,...
- 10/23/2009
- MTV Music News
Do you feel that? The world just got a lot less funny. Comedy icon and TV personality Soupy Sales (born Milton Supman) left us late yesterday at the age of 83, the Los Angeles Times reports. He'd spent the past week in a Bronx, NY hospital in steady decline after years of battling a variety of health issues. Sales leaves behind a great legacy and a large family, including Trudy Carson Sales, his wife of 29 years, two sons, a brother and four grandchildren. Our thoughts are with them all on this difficult day.
Sales was perhaps best known for his long-running sketch comedy TV series, which ran at varying times between 1959 and 1979. "The Soupy Sales Show" operated under several different names and locations during its on-again/off-again run, but it was always marked by a cast of wacky characters -- of both the human and puppet varieties -- notable guest celebrities (a varied list,...
Sales was perhaps best known for his long-running sketch comedy TV series, which ran at varying times between 1959 and 1979. "The Soupy Sales Show" operated under several different names and locations during its on-again/off-again run, but it was always marked by a cast of wacky characters -- of both the human and puppet varieties -- notable guest celebrities (a varied list,...
- 10/23/2009
- by Adam Rosenberg
- MTV Movies Blog
He died Thursday night in a NYC hospice. He was 83. Anyone who grew up in New York in the mid-1960s surely had a special relationship with the comedian (born Milton Supman) and The Soupy Sales Show based at Wnew-tv and then syndicated around the country. He was one of my earliest and most beloved TV memories. His zany antics were as addictive as his primitive hand puppets. But it was his dangerousness that made people tune in. That laughter could turn into a pie in the face, or even to rage, at a moment's notice. The mayhem even got him in trouble: when [...]...
- 10/23/2009
- by Nikki Finke
- Deadline Hollywood
Count your legends while they last. Iconic funnyman Soupy Sales (totally not his real name), perhaps best known for the thousands of pies he took to the face during his 30-plus years on TV and radio, died Thursday at a hospice in the Bronx. He was 83 and had been in bad health for some time, according to longtime friend and former manager Dave Usher. The rubber-faced slapstick specialist, whom Howard Stern has name-checked as one of his comedic heroes, started hosting the kids show Lunch With Soupy Sales in 1959, a combination of puppetry, skits and physical comedy that usually resulted in Sales being hit with a pie in the face. Just as Sesame Street transcends age groups, Sales made his kids show adult...
- 10/23/2009
- E! Online
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