Harvey Korman: The versatile comedian passes away : Netglimse.com News

Harvey Korman: The versatile comedian passes away

The award-winning versatile comic actor Harvey Korman expired on Thursday at the age of 81.

He won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to "The Carol Burnett Show" and played a role of conniving politician to hilarious effect in "Blazing Saddles".

Harvey Korman died at UCLA Medical Center from complications of a ruptured aortic artery. His family members said that he has undergone several major operations.

Katherine Korman, the daughter of the actor said, "He was a brilliant comedian and a brilliant father. He had a very good sense of humor in real life. Everything he did on 'The Carol Burnett Show,' especially the Mother Marcus character, was a special favorite".

A tall man known for his outlandish characterizations, Harvey Korman was nominated for seven Emmys for his television work and won four. He was also nominated for four Golden Globe awards and won one.

Being a native of Chicago, Korman studied drama there and then tried, unsuccessfully, to break into show business in New York City.

In 1971, Harvey Korman said in an interview, "For the next 13 years I tried to get on Broadway, on off-Broadway, under or beside Broadway".

Eventually he gave up and returned to Chicago, but he later went to California to try again. After subsisting as a car salesman and movie doorman, in the mid-1960s he began getting minor movie parts, doing voice-overs as the Great Gazoo on "The Flintstones" and winning a TV spot on "The Danny Kaye Show".

Harvey Korman's most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr in Mel Brooks' 1974 Western satire, "Blazing Saddles".

Brooks told, "A world without Harvey Korman — it's a more serious world. It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh".

On television, Burnett and Korman developed into the perfect pair with their burlesques of classic movies such as "Gone With the Wind" and soap operas like "As the World Turns".

In an interview in 2005, Korman disclosed the secret to the long-running show's success, saying, "We were an ensemble, and Carol had the most incredible attitude. I've never worked with a star of that magnitude who was willing to give so much away."

Angie Horejsi, Carol Burnett's assistant said, "Burnett is devastated by Korman's death. She loved Harvey very much".

Harvey Korman, whose birth name is Harvey Herschel Korman born on 15 February 1927 in Chicago. He left college for service in the U.S. Navy, resuming his studies afterward at the Goodman School of Drama at the Chicago Art Institute. After four years, he decided to try New York.

In 1960 Korman married Donna Elhart and they had two children, Maria and Christopher. They divorced in 1977. Two more children, Katherine and Laura, were born of his 1982 marriage to Deborah Fritz.

He is survived by his wife and the children.