Frederic Charles Willard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 18, 1933.[5] Willard's mother, Ruth (née Weinman) was a housewife.[1] His father, Frederick Charles Willard, died in 1945 when he was 12 years old.[6] He was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio.[5]
Willard (front center) with cast members of the short-lived comedy series Sirota's Court in 1976
Willard's stage career began when he moved to New York in the late 1950s. His initial work included a production of Desperate Hours at a local YMCA where he worked with future comedy partner Vic Grecco. They later performed as Willard & Grecco in the Greenwich Village area, found some success touring, and appeared on The Dean Martin Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Tonight Show. They were offered roles in the television series Get Smart and The Carol Burnett Show, but the offers fell through due to poor management. The two parted ways in 1968.[10]
Willard's film debut was in the 1967 exploitation film Teenage Mother. He later reported that the audience at one screening booed when his character interrupted an attempted sexual assault of the female lead.[11]
Willard achieved wider fame in 1977–78 as Barth Gimble's (Martin Mull) sidekick and announcer Jerry Hubbard on the Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman spinoffs Fernwood 2 Night, Forever Fernwood and America 2-Night, which parodied the nighttime talk shows of the day.[13] He was an original cast member of the NBC series Real People in 1979, then again from 1981 to 1983. He played Tom Osbourne in the 1987 Academy Award–winning short film Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall. From 1987 to 1989 he starred as a bartender/straightman in Sid and Marty Krofft's D.C. Follies, and was host to the Krofft puppets portraying political figures of the time.[14]
Willard hosted the talk show What's Hot, What's Not, which aired from 1985 to 1986 and earned him a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Talk Show Host.[15]
In 1990, Willard hosted the cable TV show Access America on the Ha! Comedy Network. As part of that show, on September 21, 1990, he appeared in episode 7 of the cult public-access television show Decoupage with Summer Caprice.[16]
In 1995, Willard reunited with his Fernwood co-star, Martin Mull, playing Scott, the romantic partner of Mull's character Leon Carp, on Roseanne.[17] The couple married in the episode "December Bride", and Scott became a recurring character during the series' final two seasons.
That same year, Willard guest-starred in three episodes of Sister, Sister, starring Tia and Tamera Mowry; Willard played Carl Mitushka,[18] a teacher at Roosevelt High who often spoke popular teenage slang terms in order to sound cool to his students. Willard voiced travel agent Wally Kogen in the 1999 episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" for The Simpsons.
Willard had a recurring role as Hank MacDougall on the later seasons of CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond, which brought him Emmy Award nominations in 2003, 2004, and 2005.[21] He also hosted a VH1 documentary series, Totally Obsessed, about people obsessed with their hobbies. He appeared as Captain Ribmanman in Episode 21 of Channel Frederator, a podcast from Kansas. He provided the voices of nudist family dad Dave Campbell in Family Guy (first in the episode "From Method to Madness"), and of Officer Brown in King of the Hill, and appeared on That '70s Show. On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Willard appeared in 100 sketches as a government official, businessman, or other authority figure who was always drinking.[22] In 2006, he voiced Dad in the Academy Award nominated animated film Monster House. He also hosted Saturday Night Live in 1978 (with musical guests Devo), and appeared twice on MADtv.
Willard was cast as a sportscaster in the television series Back to You, which premiered on the Fox Network on September 19, 2007. He played Shelby Forthright, the CEO of the Buy 'n' Large Corporation, in the first ever live-action speaking segments by Pixar in the animated film WALL-E.[23]
Willard completed a sold-out run of Fred Willard: Alone At Last!, advertised as a "one-man show" but actually featuring a cast of twelve, and received Los Angeles Artistic Director Awards for Best Comedy and Best Production.[24] Willard had several stage roles to his credit, including Off-Broadway performances in Little Murders, directed by Alan Arkin, and Arf, directed by Richard Benjamin. His regional roles include Call Me Madam in Chicago and the musicals Promises, Promises, with Jason Alexander, and Anything Goes with Rachel York, both in Los Angeles.[25][26] He starred in Wendy Wasserstein's Isn't It Romantic and off Broadway in Elvis and Juliet.[20]
On October 5, 2008, he hosted the Nickelodeon Fido Awards.[27]
On September 16, 2011, Willard was honored as a Pioneer in Comedy at Burbank International Film Festival.[30] Also in 2011, Willard starred as "Santa Jack," a comical—and somewhat pervy—owner of a local Christmas carnival in episode 12 of the final season of The Closer.
In 2012, he played Al Kaiser in Rob Reiner's film The Magic of Belle Isle. In 2013, he starred in The Bird Men (originally called The Birder) alongside Tom Cavanagh, a film centered around a mild-mannered birder who seeks revenge on a younger rival, after losing the highly coveted Head of Ornithology position at the National Park.[31]
On August 10, 2018, Willard made a special guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, reprising his role from a 1970s television pilot for an unmade series called Space Force, in light of President Donald Trump's announcement that he will create a space force for the United States military.[33] Following the sketch, Willard made guest appearances on the show on a frequent basis, often portraying comedic, misguided characters parodying current news topics which Jimmy would interview "live via satellite". The characters included the ghosts of Fred Trump and George Washington, a Trump-supporting Santa Claus, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.[34][35]
On October 23, 2019, it was announced that Willard was cast as Fred Naird in the 2020 Netflix comedy series, Space Force.[36][37] This was Willard's final acting role, with the series being released two weeks after his death.
Willard's final voice-acting performance was in the 2017 Disney animated cartoon Mickey and the Roadster Racers as the character Mr. Doozy.[38]
Willard's final role was in the 2021 television film Captain Daddy, where he played the role of Daddy, it was released in the summer a year after his death.
In 1968, Willard married Mary Lovell (1947–2018). They had a daughter and a grandson.[39]
Legal issues
On July 18, 2012, Willard was arrested on suspicion of engaging in masturbation at an adult theater on Santa Monica Boulevard and was brought to the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood Station. However, there was no proof of any misconduct and no charges were filed.[40] Despite the outcomes, PBS fired Willard from Market Warriors immediately following his arrest, and Mark L. Walberg replaced him on the show.[41] In an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon shortly thereafter, Willard stated that the incident was "very painful" and "very embarrassing", but that he "did nothing wrong". Willard was subsequently required to take a sex education diversion program.[42]
^In a 2012 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Willard said he was born on September 18, 1939; that he was "pretty sure" it was in Cleveland; that his birth name was Frederic Charles Willard (without specifying his first name's spelling), and that his father had the same given name, but spelled differently.[1] At the time of his death in 2020, Willard's daughter stated that he was 86, which also places his birth in 1933 or 1934 (1933 if born in September).[2] Some sources cite Willard's birthplace as Shaker Heights, Ohio,[3][4] and Willard himself stated that he grew up there.[1]
References
^ abc"Fred Willard Interview Part 1 of 4". The Interviews: An Oral History of Television. Television Academy Foundation. October 23, 2017. Retrieved May 16, 2020. My name at birth: Frederic Charles Willard ... I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, I'm pretty sure it's Cleveland, Ohio, September 18th, 1939. [Q: And where did you grow up?] Shaker Heights, Ohio. ... My father's name was also Frederick Willard, spelled a little different than mine. My mother's name was Ruth; her maiden name was Weinman, W-e-i-n-m-a-n.
^ abKreps, Daniel (May 17, 2020). "Fred Willard, 'Best in Show' and 'A Mighty Wind' Actor, Dead at 86". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 17, 2020. Willard's daughter Hope Mulbarger said in a statement, "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! We will miss him forever."
^Nesteroff, Kliph (2015). The comedians: drunks, thieves, scoundrels, and the history of American comedy (First ed.). New York. ISBN9780802123985. OCLC921844606.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^"Fred Willard on "DC Follies"". YouTube. Television Academy Foundation. August 8, 2017. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
^"Fred Willard on "Roseanne"". YouTube. Television Academy Foundation. August 8, 2017. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
^Pegg, Robert (October 5, 2015). Comical Co-Stars of Television: From Ed Norton to Kramer. McFarland. p. 373. ISBN978-1476610245.