Tom Bosley RIP

Happy Days's Tom Bosley Dead at 83

By Stephen M. Silverman
Tuesday October 19, 2010 01:30 PM EDT

Tom Bosley in April 2010
Tina Kaawaloa/INF



Tom Bosley the folksy father of Richie Cunningham on the '70s sitcom about the '50s, ABC's Happy Days, died Tuesday in his Palm Springs, Calif., home. On Oct. 1 he had turned 83.

The actor died of a staph infection, according to TMZ, which first reported his death.

Before finding fame on the small screene, Bosley won a Tony for starring as the beloved New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in the Puliter-Prize-winning 1959 musical Fiorello!. He also made a memorable mark in the 1964 Peter Sellers cult comedy The World of Henry Orient, as the too-understanding husband of Angela Lansbury's character.

After Happy Days, he would frequently costar with Lansbury on her CBS series, Murder She Wrote.

Reacting to Bosley's death, his Happy Days costar Henry Winkler expressed his sadness, telling Los Angeles's KNX-1070 News Radio, "I'm in shock, I really am. I spoke to him just a few weeks ago and he seemed to be getting his strength back."

Born in Chicago, Bosley was the younger son of a real estate broker father and a former concert pianist mother. "We were fairly wealthy until the stock market crashed," he told PEOPLE in 1979, during the Happy Days craze. "When I was 2, my father lost all his money." His parents divorced nine years later.

Bosley joined the Navy in 1945 at 17 ("I'm the only guy I know who went in as a seaman and came out a seaman"), then enrolled in pre-law at DePaul University. In his first year, he switched to acting.

After stock theater in Illinois (with fellow aspirants Paul Newman and Geraldine Page), he flipped a coin in 1950 to decide between New York and Los Angeles. New York won.

For nine years before Fiorello! he acted off-Broadway and in summer stock while working menial jobs to feed himself. Movie and TV roles followed, and whenever there was a Happy Days reunion, he could always be counted upon to appear – and tease his TV son, Ron Howard, about not casting him in his movies.

Bosley married twice. His first wife, Jean, a dancer, died in 1978 (they had wed in 1962). His second wife, the former Patricia Carr, survives him. They married in 1980. He also has a daughter, Amy.

Ironically, Bosley's death comes only a few days after that of another iconic '50s TV parent, Barbara Billingsley, of Leave It to Beaver

RIP Mr. C.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

As a friend on Facebook just wrote: First Mrs. Cleaver, now Mr. Cunningham. Who's next? Mrs. Partridge?

So sad.... Loved Bosley's voice, particularly.

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Oh my god! I had a crush on Mr. C. He looked just like an old boyfriend of mine.

RIP Tom Bosley.

Yeah Linda, Shirley Jones better watch her step. These celebrity deaths come in threes.

(theme from The Twilight Zone is heard)

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Louise Vale first woman to play Jane Eyre in the flickers.

Oh wow... I always loved him in Happy Days...


Rest in Peace Mr. C....

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Maureen Stapleton has to worry also.

Do you mean Jean Stapleton?

Yeah. Maureen already bought the farm.

God speed, Mr. C

Rest in Peace, Mr C.

My favorite character in Happy Days.

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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

R.I.P sir

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

I saw Bosley on stage here in Houston some years ago when Disney was touring its Beauty and the Beast stage play around the country before taking it more or less permanently to New York. I seem to remember a local newspaper interview with Bosley who said he had once been stranded in Houston sometime early in his career when a play he was in folded here, putting him out on the streets with no money and no connections. But what I read was years ago, so I can't swear I remember the facts right--it may have been another actor rather than Bosley. Anyway, I do remember him on stage in the role of Belle's father. And I remember his "introducing Tom Bosley" credit as the awkward suitor of Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger. He was a very good addition to a really good cast in that movie.

Tom Bosley in April 2010
Tina Kaawaloa/INF


You know, I think he has a greater "family" resemblance to "Richie" in this photo than he did when that TV program was on the air!

Sad, thought he was great, really loved watching him as Ritchie's dad in Happy Day's. A lot of people ofthat time obviously looked more to the characters of Fonz and the kids. But the older actors such as Tom gave another dimension to the show that gave it that extra edge of watchability.

Hated Happy Days. It never even tried to reproduce the look and feel of the 1950s. It always just looked like people from the 70s pretending to be in the 50s.

But RIP for Tom.

A bit late again, but another long and wonderful life and career. I've seen a fair amount of his work, but there's plenty more to still check out. The last thing I recall seeing him in, was a TV series called Still Standing, where he played the dentist Mr. Bloom. He did a bit more than dental work, but that's all I mention.

R.I.P.

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