Chicago actor went on ‘In Living Color’
Jay Leggett, a longtime Chicago improviser who went on to countless TV guest spots and a slot on “In Living Color,” has died at age 50.
A native of Tomahawk, Wis., he collapsed Saturday after a day of North Woods deer hunting, the Lincoln County [Wis.] Sheriff ’s Department told the Wausau Daily Herald.
Mr. Leggett was a member of the influential team Blue Velveeta at iO back when the theater was ImprovOlympic. That was in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when Mike Myers and Chris Farley had just brought their iO training to “Saturday Night Live,” and Horatio Sanz and Tina Fey would follow.
“Talk about living under the lucky comedy stars,” he said in a 2008 Sun-Times interview.
On Sunday, Chicago friends were remembering his intelligent wit, his robust singing voice and his encouragement of young talent.
Mr. Leggett was a big guy in a city with a soft spot for actors both hilarious and hefty: John Belushi, Chris Farley, Jeff Garlin, Andy Richter.
“Intentionally or not, a lot of us big guys came to Chicago for Second City, and Chicago embraces big guys,” Mr. Leggett told the SunTimes in 1995. “It’s a very blue-collar, big-guy town.”
He departed for Los Angeles in 1993 to appear in the final season of “In Living Color,” where his roles included George Costanza (opposite Jim Carrey as Jerry in a “Seinfeld” parody) and an Irish singer bumming out a homeless shelter.
His later TV work included guest spots on “Ally McBeal,” “Star Trek: Voyager,” “The Drew Carey Show” and “NYPD Blue.”
In 2008 he and several friends from the ImprovOlympic days — Mitch Rouse, David Pasquesi and Michael Coleman— starred in the short-lived Spike TV series “Factory,” about small-town buddies working at the local plant. Mr. Leggett said he tapped into his memories of a Tomahawk paper mill where he and other family members worked, and where a sign announced 212 days had passed without an accident.
“If you worked the day shift, that’s when they were changing it to either 213, or zero,” Mr. Leggett recalled. “And then of course you were like, ‘What happened? Who lost a finger? Who dropped a beam on their foot?’ ”
He also co-wrote the 2004 film comedies “Employee of the Month,” starring Matt Dillon, and “Without a Paddle” (2004), starring Seth Green. The latter had Burt Reynolds playing a crackpot called Del, named after Mr. Leggett’s Chicago improv mentor Del Close.
He recently directed the upcoming movie “Live Nude Girls,” with Kids in the Hall comedian Dave Foley and porn veteran Bree Olson, and tweeted earlier this month, “Movie is DONE. Time to make a deal.”