|
|
Let those who don't want none have memories of not gettin' any.
- Brother Dave Gardner |
 |
Comic 'Brother Dave' Gardner dies MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (UPI) -"Brother Dave" Gardner, a popular comedian of the 1960s, who had mounted a comeback after a decade of booze, drugs and poor health -- collapsed on a movie set and died of a heart attack. He was 57. Gardner, of Atlanta, complained of chest pains on the set of Chain Gang, a film being shot south of Myrtle Beach. Officials of Regency Productions, producers of the film, said Gardner had completed his work and was signing autographs Thursday night when he was stricken. "He was joking with some of the people when all of a sudden he entered the studio and said, 'I need some help.' Then he passed out," said Debbie Putnam, a spokeswoman for Earl Owensby studios. He died at Grand Strand General Hospital at 9:07 p.m. of a massive heart attack. During his heyday in the 1960s, Gardner appeared regularly on the Ed Sullivan and Jack Paar televison shows, often lacing his comedy routine with verbal potshots at politicians and their friends in the post-Eisenhower days. Gardner, whose deilvery had the ring of a Southern preacher, helped pioneer the field of comedy record albums. The entertainer's popularity declined sharply in the late 1960s and he turned to drugs and liquor. Later, his health began to fail. Gardner began his comeback in 1980 with a series of performing and speaking
tours, most of them on college campuses. 'Brother' Dave Associated Press Myrtle Beach, S.C. -- "Brother" Dave Gardner, the popular Southern comedian who was a leader in making comedy record albums in the 1950s and 1960s, suffered a massive heart attack Thursday on a movie set and later died at a hospital. He was 57. Gardner, who had a pacemaker implanted in January, died at 9:07 p.m. Thursday, said a supervisor at Grand Strand Hospital. A frequent performer on the old Ed Sullivan Show, Gardner was stricken while signing autographs on the set where filming had just begun on his new movie, "Chain Gang," said a friend, Mararet Downs, who was present. The movie was being produced by Earl Owensby of North Carolina, for whom Gardner recently finished an autobiographical film called Brother Dave in Concert. That movie recounted his bouts with drugs and alcohol and the 1980 death of his wife and manager, Millie. Gardner, who lived in suburban Atlanta, remarried in December, and his wife, Judy, was at the hospital when he died. Besides his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Candace Hare of Charlotte,
N.C.; a son, David Gardner III, of New Orleans, a brother, Kent Gardner,
of Jackson, Tenn.; and a sister, Maureen Miles of Easthampton, Mass. Southern comedian Dave Gardner dies MYRTLE BEACH, S. C. -- "Brother" Dave Gardner, the popular Southern comedian who was a leader in making comedy record albums in the 1950s and 1960s, suffered a massive heart attack Thursday on a movie set and later died at Grand Strand Hospital. He was 57. A frequent performer on the "Ed Sullivan Show," Gardner was stricken while signing autographs on the set where filming had just begun his new movie, "Chain Gang," said a friend, Margaret Downs, who was present. The movie was being produced by Earl Owensby of North Carolina, for whom Gardner recently finished an autobiographical film called "Brother Dave in Concert." That movie recounted his bouts with drugs and alcohol and the 1980 death of his wife and manager, Millie. Gardner, who lived in suburban Atlanta, had a pacemaker implanted in his chest last January. The slim, cigarette-smoking comedian was given to off-color humor. He frequently targeted politicians and their friends in the post-Eisenhower days, but also found ways to rework everyday miseries into colorful anecdotes. Gardner's popularity extended to comedy record albums, a new field in the 1950s. But his career later suffered because of personal tragedies and, he said, a dearth of material. He claimed he passed through death's door three times, and even played that for laughs. "Yeah, they tell me I 'died' three times," he said. "But,
man, I didn't see the devil. I didn't see God. I didn't go nowhere. I ain't
got nothing to report except that I'm $20,000 in debt."
The last time he was in the hospital, Dave would dismay his doctors by asking:
Hey Doc,
[ home ] [ audio ] [ discography ] [ opeds ] [ congregation ] [ obituaries ] [ email us ] |
