Posted on 01/13/2014 9:45:30 AM PST by Borges
Frank Marth, a veteran character actor and member of Jackie Gleason's stock company on The Honeymooners, died Sunday of congestive heart failure and Alzheimer’s disease in Rancho Mirage, Calif., a family friend told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 91.
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The tall and slender Marth, though, is probably best remembered for his assortment of background roles on The Honeymooners, which starred Gleason and Audrey Meadows as Ralph and Alice Kramden, with Art Carney as their upstairs neighbor, Ed Norton. Marth played Harvey Wohlstetter, who hires Alice to babysit his son, Harvey Jr., as Ralph jumps to conclusions and thinks his wife is having an affair. He was one of the hoods who holds the Kramdens and Norton hostage after Ralph witnesses a bank robbery, the newsman who gets Ralph in trouble at home after he quotes the bus driver in the paper boasting that he's the "head of the household," and the off-screen narrator of Norton's favorite TV show, Captain Video. Other "classic 39" episodes had him as Ralph's co-worker or pool-room buddy. Before and after The Honeymooners in the mid-1950s, Marth worked with Gleason on the comedian's variety shows Cavalcade of Stars and American Scene Magazine, the latter beamed from Miami Beach, Fla.
In Meadows' 1994 book Love, Alice: My Life as a Honeymooner, Marth noted that Gleason always called him Francis. On the show, "I always felt like I was going to a party, instead of work," he recalled. "It was such a blast."
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
He was in everything back then. Long career. RIP Frank.
LOL “Gee I didn’t know Davy Crockett was so fat”....a classic!!!!!
If you’re ever in Miami, I highly recommend a visit to Gleason’s grave. It’s built like a Greek temple, and at the base of the steps it proclaims “and away we go....”
OMG what a blast from the past!
I forgot that one-line zinger
I laughed my a$$ off
I remember him as making a convincing looking Nazi in “Hogan’s Heroes”.
One of my favorite scenes was when Ralph actually gets to be a hero and beats this guy up (I should say, ‘beat up’ the character he was playing). Then Ralph says, “I guess this is the first time you messed with a N.Y. bus driver. (that’s paraphrased best from memory)
R.I.P. Mr. Marth
He was great!
RIP Frank Marth.
RIP.
The guy played all kinds of roles.
RIP - always loved his characters
For all those of is that love old TV and radio, please check out the wonderful free archive of old time radio, television, and military films at http://archive.org. You can listen to all the episodes of such classics as “Dragnet” and “Yours Truly, Johhny Dollar”. These are staples of my life to keep me sane. As a bonus, a lot of the shows still retain the original commercial inserts, and the messages are all pro-America, pro-constitution. When I hear those shows and the commercials it gives me hope that we can get back to being a strong and proud USA again. I’ll have to go dig up old Honeymooners episodes now, but I believe they are still in syndication and have copyright holders. RIP Frank.
“You were a little cup of butter; now you’re a whole tub of lard!”
Marth had the kind of career most actors dream about: plenty of work, a good living, a good reputation, and the chance to live a normal life.
The people were funny, funny and not cartoons.
Why does everyone still believe in the free lunch?
I remember him in a lot of old shows since I watch too many.
Bookmarked for later.
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