Posted on 10/09/2012 2:03:05 PM PDT by drewh
Former Detroit Lions standout and National Football League great, Alex Karras, who later became a TV star, is reportedly near death, following recent kidney failure.
The 77-year-old former defensive tackle has been given only a few days to live, the Detroit Free Press reports.
Karras was drafted by the Lions 10th overall in 1958, and he played for the team for his entire NFL career. Following his retirement from football in 1970 at the age of 35, Karras took up acting, playing Mongo in the Mel Brooks movie "Blazing Saddles" and lovable dad George Papadapolis on the ABC series "Webster."
Karras' former team is already extending its sympathies to the All-Pro defensive lineman. Lions President Tom Lewand said in a statement released late Monday night that the "entire Detroit Lions family is deeply saddened to learn of the news regarding one of our all-time greats.
"Perhaps no player in Lions history attained as much success and notoriety for what he did after his playing days as Alex," the statement read. "We know Alex first and foremost as one of the cornerstones to our Fearsome Foursome defensive line of the 1960s. Many others across the country came to know Alex as an accomplished actor and as an announcer during the early years of Monday Night Football."
His wife, Susan Clark, who also played his wife on "Webster," told the Associated Press earlier this year that Karras had had symptoms of dementia for years
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Mongo just pawn in game of life.
“Mongo just pawn in game of life”
Good luck my friend
Don’t bet against him!
you beat me to it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKRma7PDW10&feature=fvwrel
I have always liked the guy, but he is married to a Canadian lefty and apparently she’s taken him over to the dark side.
They were being celebrated recently on the far-left wacko TV channel LinkTV for their “very generous donation”.
The Sheriff in Porky’s.
Blazing Saddles- Enter Mongo “if you shoot him, you’ll just make him mad” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwNJla8WvoY&feature=related
Played college ball at Iowa.
I am sorry to hear the news, but is dementia at age 77 a sign of much other than, well, being 77? How much can we really blame football here?
So sorry to hear that he is near the end of his life, he is still a young man.
Tanniker like Mongo. Tanniker sad.
It isn’t not a “given” that you will get dementia.
It is probably a combination of genetics, and twenty years of getting his head whacked around in a pre-historic helmet.
"And here's Otis Sistrunk from the University of Mars..."
Godspeed, Alex.
GMTA
Yes, they do. But yours was a few minutes quicker.
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