Second City stint helped shape prolific comic’s career
Actor known for roles on ‘ Modern Family,’ ‘ Best in Show’
Fred Willard, who emerged from Chicago’s Second City to become a prolific, long- running comic actor known for playing clueless or incompetent characters, has died at 86.
His daughter Hope confirmed the death on Twitter:
“It is with a heavy heart that I share the news my father passed away very peacefully last night at the fantastic age of 86 years old. He kept moving, working and making us happy until the very end. We loved him so very much!”
The Second City said he died Friday in Los Angeles. No cause of death was disclosed.
Willard indeed remained in demand well into his senior years. He had a recurring role on the hit ABC sitcom “Modern Family” as the funloving father of Phil Dunphy ( Ty Burell). The character, seen throughout the show’s 11- season run, died in an episode that aired in January.
His work there earned Willard his fourth Prime- Time Emmy nomination. The first three honored his performances as Amy’s traditionminded father on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” where he was paired with Georgia Engel as his wife.
Before his death he shot another paternal role as a general’s dad in “Space Force,” a comedy series premiering May 29 on Netflix. Steve Carell, a fellow Second City alum who stars as the general, tweeted
Saturday that Willard was “the funniest person that I’ve ever worked with.”
He was a fixture of director Christopher Guest’s largely unscripted ensemble comedy films, putting his improv talents to use to play a travel agent with showbiz ambitions in “Waiting for Guffman,” an over- hishead dog show announcer in “Best in Show,” a child star turned talent manager in “A Mighty Wind” and an entertainment journalist in “For Your Consideration.”
Guest and collaborator Eugene Levy would give actors a framework for the story but entrust them to devise their own dialogue for their characters.
“It really makes you more creative,” Willard told the Sun- Times while promoting “Best in Show” in 2000. “I don’t know, I think they shot something like 300 hours of film, editing that down to a finished 82- minute movie. Going in, you know it’s a case of throwing every pitch you have. What he doesn’t like will come out, but you don’t want to leave the set at the end of the day thinking, ‘ Darn! I should have done that!’ ”
He also appeared in Guest’s HBO series “Family Tree.” Earlier he worked with Guest in director Rob Reiner’s seminal rock ’ n’ roll satire “This Is Spinal Tap,” contributing a rich cameo as an officer welcoming the heavy metal band to a gig on a military base.
Willard’s rise to fame included a brief but educational stint in Chicago at The Second City, where he was hired in 1965 along with future stand- up comedy star Robert Klein. He appears in two revues there, “Off the Road” and “This and That.”
“I have worked with several kinds of improvisational approaches, but the best was Second City where they teach you how to get into a scene, move the scene along and never go for a cheap joke,” he said in the 2000 interview.
In one scene that was his idea, Willard played the host of an amateur hour doing his best to support the terrible performers. When one of them ( Joan Bassie) impersonated a catatonic fit, Willard couldn’t get her out of it and ended up carrying her stiff body offstage.
“Fred was one of the kindest, most generous souls I have ever met and one of the funniest humans to ever grace that Second City stage, always game,” Second City CEO and longtime friend Andrew Alexander said Saturday. “It was no accident that he was always working; he was adored by both audiences and the industry alike. We lost one of the greats.”
Willard became nationally known on “Fernwood 2 Night,” an irreverent 1970s TV talk show parody ( later “America 2 Night”). He played Jerry Hubbard, the sidekick to Martin Mull’s Garth Gimble. Two decades later, Willard reteamed with Mull as his character’s husband.
In 2012, Willard had a brush with the law. The actor was arrested after being suspected of committing a lewd act at a Hollywood adult theater.
Willard was fired from a narrating job and had to complete a diversion program. He called the arrest “very embarrassing” but insisted he did nothing wrong.
“It’s the last time I’m going to listen to my wife when she says, ‘ Why don’t you go and see a movie?’ ” Willard said during an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s NBC show “Late Night.”