Jonathan Winters dies: Ground-breaking improv comic inspired funny men and women

Jonathan Winters dies following a long career as a comic and writer. Jonathan Winters dies after working with some of the greats in the comedic arts.

By Associated Press / April 12, 2013

Jonathan Winters dies: This file photo shows comedian Jonathan Winters posing at a hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Winters, whose breakneck improvisations inspired Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, and many others, died Thursday, April 11, 2013, at his Montecito, Calif., home of natural causes.

Damian Dovarganes/AP/File

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Jonathan?Winters, the cherub-faced comedian whose breakneck improvisations and misfit characters inspired the likes of Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, has died.

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The Ohio native died Thursday evening at his Montecito, Calif., home, said Joe Petro III, a longtime family friend. Petro said Winters died of natural causes and was surrounded by family and friends.

Winters was a pioneer of improvisational standup comedy, with an exceptional gift for mimicry, a grab bag of eccentric personalities and a bottomless reservoir of creative energy. Facial contortions, sound effects, tall tales ? all could be used in a matter of seconds to get a laugh.

On Jack Paar's television show in 1964, Winters was handed a foot-long stick and he swiftly became a fisherman, violinist, lion tamer, canoeist, U.N. diplomat, bullfighter, flutist, delusional psychiatric patient, British headmaster and Bing Crosby's golf club.

"As a kid, I always wanted to be lots of things," Winters told U.S. News & World Report in 1988. "I was a Walter Mitty type. I wanted to be in the French Foreign Legion, a detective, a doctor, a test pilot with a scarf, a fisherman who hauled in a tremendous marlin after a 12-hour fight."

The humor most often was based in reality ? his characters Maude Frickert and Elwood P. Suggins, for example, were based on people Winters knew growing up in Ohio.

A devotee of Groucho Marx and Laurel and Hardy, Winters and his free-for-all brand of humor inspired Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, Tracey Ullman and Lily Tomlin, among others. But Williams and Carrey are his best-known followers.

Winters, who battled alcoholism and depression for years, was introduced to millions of new fans in 1981 as the son of Williams' goofball alien and his earthling wife in the final season of ABC's "Mork and Mindy."

The two often strayed from the script. Said Williams: "The best stuff was before the cameras were on, when he was open and free to create. ... Jonathan would just blow the doors off."

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