Fred Willard, a comedic actor whose television and film appearances date back to the late 1960s, died Friday at the age of 86.
Critics, scholars, and philosophers can argue for hours about “what is funny?”—but plop anyone in front of a screen and have them watch Willard in Best in Show, and if they don’t laugh, they should be checked to see if they’re breathing. Willard’s sarcastic, wide-eyed, brilliantly-timed quips in Christopher Guest’s dog show mock documentary isn’t something any mere mortal can pull off. You have to be born with it.
The Ohio-born Willard got his start as part of a comedy duo with Vic Grecco in the late 1950s and early 1960s, working nightclubs and eventually making television appearances. They were on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over fifty times.
Willard stepped out on his own in small film roles (he was in Jacques Demy’s Model Shop, sans credit), then landed a perch as Martin Mull’s sidekick on the talk show parody Fernwood 2 Night. The avant-garde series (a spin-off of the Norman Lear-created, Louise Lasser-starring Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) evolved into the broader America 2-Night—and then, in a wonderful blurring of art and life, Willard became a host on the early 1980s infotainment magazine show Real People.
From that point on, Fred Willard was never not popping up on television or in a film. He appeared on Mama’s Family, on The Golden Girls, on Saturday Night Live, and opposite Steve Martin as the mayor in Roxanne.
In 1985 he had a small role in This Is Spinal Tap, which forged a relationship with Christopher Guest and his treasured, improv-heavy comedies like Waiting For Guffman, A Mighty Wind, and, most memorably for Willard, Best in Show.