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US COMEDIAN DON Rickles has died at the age of 90.
His publicist confirmed that Rickles died from kidney failure at his Los Angeles home yesterday.
Rickles, throughout his career that spanned decades, often appeared on late-night television shows and also headlined nightclubs and casino shows in Las Vegas.
He was sarcastically nicknamed Mr Warmth or The Merchant of Venom for his abrasive humour and lashing out at hecklers in the audience during his act.
Celebrities and politicians, including Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Ronald Reagan, were also often the target of his barbs.
He famously got Sinatra’s attention at one of his shows when he spotted the Chairman of the Board in the audience and shouted out to him: “Make yourself at home Frank. Hit somebody.”
Born in Queens, New York, Rickles’ career took off after he started making regular appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the Late Show with David Letterman.
“I think the reason that (my act) caught on and gave me a wonderful career is that I was never mean-spirited,” he once said. “Not that you had to like it, but you had to be under a rock somewhere not to get it.”
Films
He also appeared in a series of movies including Clint Eastwood’s 1970 film Kelly’s Heroes and Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino.
Most recently, he appeared in a voiceover role as the grumpy Mr Potato Head in the Toy Story films.
Throughout his career, Rickles also made guest appearances on numerous television shows including I Dream of Jeannie and The Beverly Hillbillies.
Tributes poured in after the news of his death broke. Tom Hanks, who worked with Rickles on the Toy Story films, tweeted: “A God died today.”
“He was called The Merchant of Venom, but in truth, he was one of the kindest, caring and most sensitive human beings we have ever known,” comedian Bob Newhart and his wife Ginnie, who were close friends, said in a statement.
We are devastated and our world will never be the same. We were totally unprepared for this.
Comedian Billy Crystal called Rickles’ death “a giant loss”, while late-night host Jimmy Kimmel described the comedian in a tweet as “one of the sweetest and most lovely people I had the pleasure of knowing”.
Rickles is survived by his wife of 52 years, Barbara Sklar, and his daughter Mindy Mann.
- © AFP 2017 with reporting by Órla Ryan
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Every doctor I ever had – told me that it was important to complete the full course.
@Fank Pulman: and dentist…
@Fank Pulman: Ah here doctors, make up yer minds.
@Fank Pulman: Doctors also used to prescribe cigarettes to regain your strong . The advice changes in accordance with the best latest information, as it should.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: *strength
@Neal Ireland Hello.: I doubt that…evidence ?
I never finish the course of antibiotics always stopped after maybe 3 days when im feeling better, have never had any bad effects from doing so either, Just saying!
@Colette Kearns: Well Colette please explain how you grew that third arm?
@Gary: Colete hasn’t grown a third arm , her fourth one fell off : )
@Garry , what are you on about??
@Colette Kearns: Seems it was actually the sense of humour that fell off!
@Colette Kearns:
@Rory Stafford:
I would certainly not take antibiotics and don’t believe I ever have healthy body Will not allow bacteria to multiply as for virus it’s no good anyway
If my children were sick a doctor would certainly have to put forward a very good verified reason for there use The inappropriate use of antibiotics is widespread and wrong
@Colette Kearns: Whoever these British clowns are they should be ignored: Stopping antibiotics when “you feel better” rather than when the course ends is dangerous for two reasons, firstly the not all of the bacteria are gone and if they multiple and attack your system again they will have built up a resistance to the antibiotics. And secondly this is where Superbugs, that antibiotics are ineffective on, come from.
This is based on one paper. One. Against all of the research prior that indicates this is a bad idea. People still routinely don’t finish the course — maybe wait to see that this is confirmed before pushing more people to do that.
This is strange because drug resistant TB has said to be a direct result of people not completing their medication. They actually have people calling around making sure people don’t stop medication when they feel better.
This has to be fake news! Drug companies and their prescribing agents have no interest in shifting shed loads of tablets just for profit!
They are looking after our health and have no interest in financial rewards or holidays for prescribing a particular anti-biotic.
Just saying like.
Anyone seen Bob Geldoff anywhere? Something bad is going to happen if he dosent appear in public soon!
Treat every day like it’s your last , one day you’ll be right .
Only the other day a scientific study claimed , alcohol improves memory .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/24/alcohol-improves-memory-scientists-say-study-finds-drinking/
The humanity
Diseases resistant to drugs
Go
Unleavened bread
Locusts and honey if you can
This is 70 year old science that was never updated.
This error posting comment message is really annoying!
@journal.ie
If you write a comment that goes over the 800 characters, but then edit it to under 800 it still give the error posting comment message, even if you copy the text and try to post it as a new comment, is this a glitch of the text limit?
Can’t you increase the limit to a number, so actual comments can be made, instead of quasi tweets!
Yes, I realise my “@journal.ie” is a quasi tweet!
:-)
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