Larry Storch
1923-2022
Comic actor Larry Storch died this past week, and while living to age 99 and staying in relative good health the whole time is a terrific run, the loss of Storch causes a real pang of sadness in the hearts of Classic TV Sitcom lovers everywhere. I have long maintained that if there were a Mt, Rushmore of Sitcom Second Bananas, Larry Storch's Cpl. Randolph Agarn of "F Troop" would be on it.*
Storch's 250 IMDB acting credits stretch back to 1951, the year that I was born, and continued through 2010, but Storch continued making personal appearances, and even Tik-Tok videos to the very end. He started out as a nightclub comic, moved into bit parts in movies, TV shows, and appearances on television variety shows (remember those?). He hit the jackpot, though, when cast as Forrest Tucker's Sgt. O'Rourke's sidekick in "F Troop", a sitcom about an inept group of US Army Cavalry soldiers stationed at the forsaken Fort Courage in Indian territory right after the Civil War. The series ran for only two seasons on prime time from 1965-67, but it has lived forever in reruns, syndication, and Classic TV cable channels. Unlike some actors who despair over being constantly being identified with one role, Storch loved the fact that fans would see him on the streets and still say "Hey, Agarn". It pleased me to read in his obits that he considered his two year run on "F Tropp" as the highlight of his career.
Storch's name came up frequently during my trip to Canada last month when we visited the Canadian town of Banff. "F Troop" fans (me foremost among them) immediately thought of the episode from Season Two called "The Singing Mountie" wherein Storch played Agarn's French Canadian cousin, Lucky Pierre Agarniere, and the plot line revolved aroung the notorious Canadian bandit, The Burglar of Banff. The schtick in the show, though, was that the second f in Banff was also pronounced. "Banff-ff." Hard to make it funny with just words on a page, so watch this video instead.
Some interesting facts gleaned from reading Storch's obit in the New York Times:
- He received an Emmy nomination for his role in "F Troop"
- Until the end, he would often go into Central Park and play the saxophone
- He claimed to made more money doing voice over work on McDonald's commercials than in any other gig in his career
- One of his Navy buddies during WW II was a guy from Brooklyn named Bernie Schwartz. Schwartz, of course, went on to be Tony Curtis, and he would often cast Storch in his movies, one of which was "The Great Race" (1965) and included this great scene where all Storch wanted was "a little fightin' room."
The "F Troop" Stars
Tucker, Storch, Ken Berry, Melody Patterson
O'rourke, Agarn, Parmenter, Wrangler Jane
All of them no longer with us
Rip Larry Storch
*If you are wondering what the other three Second bananas on this particular Mt. Rushmore, the answer is Don Knotts' Barney Fife, Art Carney's Ed Norton, and Jason Alexander's Geoge Costanza.
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To paraphrase what I wrote about James Caan in this space earlier this week, when an actor who was key figure in one of the greatest television series ever leaves us, that passing is worth noting. Such is the case with the death of Tony Sirico, 79, who played Mob enforcer Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri in 74 episodes of "The Sopranos" from 1999-2007, and, more often than not, he ended up with some of the more memorable lines in any given show.
Sirico's acting career turned out to be a case of art imitating life. Growing up in Brooklyn, Sirico was a "half a wise guy" who was arrested twenty-eight times, and did two stretches in prison covering almost three years. A common theme runs through many of his 79 IMDB credits. He played a mobster in a minor role in "Goodfellas". He appeared in six different Woody Allen movies, usually playing, you guessed it, a mob guy. He even did the voice of a talking dog in an episode of "Family Guy", and the dog was, of course, a wise guy. In "The Sopranos" his Paulie Walnuts was one of the few long term characters who survived as the Jersey mob wars culminated on that final season in 2007. Fact I didn't know until reading the Washington Post obit for Sirico: Paul Gualtieri was given the name "Paulie Walnuts" because early on in his mob career, he was supposed to hijack a truckload of television sets, but the truck ended up carrying nothing but nuts (the kind you eat) instead. Paulie also killed more people on the show, nine, than any other character.
He was one of the most memorable characters on this show that was full off them, and his most memorable episode was probably from Season Three, "Pine Barrens." You can watch a five and a half minutesclip with highlights of that classic episode HERE. It's gold!
RIP Tony Sirico.
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