Charles Grodin dies: Actor, Emmy winner and curmudgeon of late-night TV was 86

The New York Times

Grodin, who died today of bone marrow cancer, is known for his many movie roles, from Midnight Run to The Heartbreak Kid. But he was also a staple of late-night TV, making 36 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, 17 appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and 25 appearances on Late Show with David Letterman. In fact, Charles Grodin vs. David Letterman was the original Jimmy Kimmel vs. Matt Damon. "Starting in the late 1970s and lasting for well over three decades, Charles Grodin ... would regularly and hilariously bump heads with the likes of Johnny Carson and David Letterman during his own late night appearances," Yahoo! News' Gregory Wakeman recalled of their "feud" in 2017. "Charles Grodin’s deadpan passive-aggressive shtick was so hard to interpret that people even mistook it for genuine hostility. In the process he created one of the great late night characters. But while Charles Grodin’s run-ins with Carson were an uncomfortable yet hilarious delight, it was the irascible Letterman that really knew how to push his buttons. Arguably the finest example came in May, 1990, when Charles Grodin appeared on Late Night With David Letterman to promote his play The Price Of Fame, only for Letterman to mistakenly call it The Prince Of Fame, and immediately provoke the wrath of the actor...Things got so bad that in 1991 Charles Grodin even appeared on the show with an attorney after Letterman had said some rather libellous comments regarding the actor the week before." Grodin hosted a talk show himself: CNBC's The Charles Grodin Show from 1995 to 1998 -- which Dana Carvey parodied on The Dana Carvey Show. In 2000, he became a political commentator for CBS News' 60 Minutes II. Grodin was also reportedly one of the people banned from Saturday Night Live after looking unprepared and clumsy after missing rehearsal when he hosted in 1977. In the mid-2010s, Grodin recurred on Louie as Louis CK's doctor. In 2016, he recurred on ABC's Madoff miniseries as Carl Shapiro, one of Bernie Madoff's biggest investors. Grodin is also an Emmy winner for helping write the The Paul Simon Special in 1977.