{"id":113951,"date":"2017-08-25T00:06:16","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T04:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=113951"},"modified":"2017-08-25T00:06:16","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T04:06:16","slug":"cheers-actor-radio-host-jay-thomas-dies-at-69","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/08\/25\/cheers-actor-radio-host-jay-thomas-dies-at-69\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Cheers’ actor, radio host Jay Thomas dies at 69"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The actor Jay Thomas at 44th Primetime Emmy Awards (Photo By Jay Thomas at 44th Primetime Emmy Awards.jpg Alan Light *derivative work: Sirab – Jay Thomas at 44th Primetime Emmy Awards.jpg, CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LOS ANGELES — Jay Thomas, a radio talk show host and actor with recurring roles on the sitcoms \u201cMurphy Brown\u201d and \u201cCheers,\u201d has died, his publicist said. Thomas was 69.<\/p>\n

He was \u201cone of the funniest and kindest men I have had the honour to call both client and friend for 25 years plus,\u201d publicist Tom Estey said in a statement Thursday. He did not provide further details.<\/p>\n

Thomas was fighting cancer, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.<\/p>\n

Thomas’ best-known roles were as Eddie LeBec, the former-hockey-player husband of barmaid Carla on \u201cCheers,\u201d and tabloid-talk-show host Jerry Gold on \u201cMurphy Brown,\u201d for which he won two Emmys.<\/p>\n

Diane English, creator of \u201cMurphy Brown,\u201d said in a Twitter post that she was heartbroken to hear of his death and called him \u201cgifted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have loved to write another role for him. RIP Jay,\u201d she tweeted.<\/p>\n

Thomas, who in recent years hosted a SiriusXM Radio talk show, was a reliably worthy guest. His annual Christmastime appearance on \u201cLate Show with David Letterman\u201d became a tradition that included a contest to knock a meatball off a Christmas tree erected onstage.<\/p>\n

The custom began one night in 1998 when New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde was a guest. He and Letterman picked up footballs and began tossing them at the oddly decorated tree, aiming for the meatball.<\/p>\n

Impatiently watching their failures from the wings was Thomas, former quarterback at tiny Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. He ran on stage, picked up a football and, in one throw, accomplished what the NFL quarterback couldn’t in several. Thomas was invited back annually for the duration of Letterman’s \u201cLate Show\u201d run to try to repeat his feat.<\/p>\n

With each appearance he also retold a tale of his time as a radio DJ in the South when he and a friend gave a ride to Clayton Moore, star of TV’s \u201cLone Ranger.\u201d Letterman hailed it as the \u201cbest story I’ve ever heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas called his annual \u201cLate Show\u201d ritual \u201cthe craziest thing I have ever been a part of\u201d in an interview a few years ago with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Born John Thomas Terrell in Kermit, Texas, he began his radio career as a sports announcer for high school football and college basketball while attending schools including Gulf Coast College and Jacksonville University to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees, according to his online biography.<\/p>\n

He worked as a radio disc jockey and station program manager in so many Southern cities that \u201cI had a career like a Piedmont Airlines schedule,\u201d he joked in an AP interview.<\/p>\n

His radio experience led to stand-up comedy gigs and eventually acting on stage and TV. In 1979, he was cast on the hit sitcom \u201cMork & Mindy\u201d in the supporting role of delicatessen owner Remo DaVinci.<\/p>\n

He starred for three seasons in the sitcom \u201cLove & War\u201d as a sports writer romancing the woman who owned his favourite sports bar. Thomas also made many guest appearances on comedy and drama series, most recently on \u201cRay Donovan,\u201d \u201cNCIS: New Orleans\u201d and \u201cBones.\u201d<\/p>\n

His films roles include \u201cMr. Holland’s Opus\u201d and second and third \u201cSanta Clause\u201d films.<\/p>\n

Thomas’ survivors include his wife, Sally, and sons J.T. Harding and Jacob and Samuel Thomas.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP Television Writer Frazier Moore in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES — Jay Thomas, a radio talk show host and actor with recurring roles on the sitcoms \u201cMurphy Brown\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":113952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[21872],"class_list":["post-113951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-jay-thomas","mauthors-lynn-elber","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}