Best known for his long tenure on the comedy-variety show, Mr. Conway was a leading non-leading man and an enduringly popular clown.
Tim Conway, whose gallery of innocent goofballs, stammering bystanders, transparent connivers, oblivious knuckleheads and hapless bumblers populated television comedy and variety shows for more than half a century, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 85.
His death was confirmed by his publicist, Howard Bragman.
With a sweetly cherubic face, a deceptively athletic physicality and an utter devotion to foolishness and slapstick, Mr. Conway was among Hollywood’s most enduringly popular clowns. The winner of six Emmy Awards and a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame, he was a leading non-leading man, a vivid second banana whose deferential mien and skill as a collaborator made him most comfortable — and often funniest — in the shadow of a star.
For Mr. Conway, those stars were, most notably, Ernest Borgnine, with whom he appeared on the popular early-1960s series “McHale’s Navy,” and Carol Burnett, on whose comedy-variety show Mr. Conway was regularly featured from 1967 to 1978.
Mr. Conway’s career had a serendipitous beginning. After mustering out of the Army in the late 1950s, he was working for a television station in Cleveland, writing, directing and occasionally performing, creating characters for comedy spots on a show devoted to movies. The actress and comedian Rose Marie, best known for her later role as a comedy writer on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” happened to be passing through Cleveland and watched Mr. Conway work; she arranged for him to audition for Steve Allen, who was impressed. Mr. Conway made several appearances in sketches he wrote for himself on Allen’s prime-time variety show.
In an interview with the Archive of American Television in 2004, Mr. Conway recalled that when he was cast in “McHale’s Navy,” he was a novice actor.
“I had no professional training at all,” he said. “I had a sense of humor and had been in front of a microphone, but as far as doing movies or series work or anything like that, I had no idea.”
That show, broadcast from 1962 to 1966, concerned a PT boat crew in the South Pacific during World War II who, led by Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale (Borgnine), flouted Navy regulations at every turn and considered the war a chance to enjoy an island vacation. Mr. Conway played Ensign Charles Parker, an enthusiastic officer with a young career already blighted by mishap who is assigned by McHale’s superior officer and frustrated nemesis, Captain Binghamton (Joe Flynn), to infiltrate McHale’s crew and report back on their transgressions.
