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Ted Baxter: for the young ones out there, that comes from the Mary Tyler Moore show, about a reporterette in a big city news room ... a comedy, and Ted was an overacting fool...

And yep, he is kind of like that...

Btw, whenever I read about a Hollywood man who was Married to one woman all the while and kept hold of a family ...

well:

PLYMOUTH-The nation knew him as Ted Baxter, the bumbling newscaster on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, but Terryville will always remember him as Teddy Konopka, the bright, young Polish boy who worked his way to Hollywood and made it big.

Ted Knight, Terryville's favorite son, died of cancer Tuesday at his Pacific Palisades home, his wife and three children at his side. He was 62.

He was born Dec. 7, 1923, on Allen Street in Terryville as Tadeus Wladyslaw Konopka. Town residents and family said this morning that Knight never forgot his Polish heritage or his roots.

Most fondly remember the day when in 1976, when he returned here and was the Grand Marshal for the town's bicentennial parade. During the festivities over 500 Terryville residents celebrated his success at a testimonial dinner that was sold out three months in advance.

"Everyone knew Ted, of course, as the showman," the actor's cousin, Matilda Levandoski, of Plymouth said this morning. "But he was a family person too. He loved his family very, very much and he was always proud of being from Terryville."

Knight was hospitalized last year for removal of a cancerous growth from his urinary tract. Levandoski said he had been ill with cancer for some time. He returned to the hospital earlier this month for treatments, she said.

Family members had planned to visit Knight in September, Levandoski said, estimating that Knight had 80100 relatives in the PlymouthBristolWaterbury area.

"He was proud to be from this town. It didn't matter to him that he was from a small town. Anybody could talk to him," Mayor Donna Warkoski said this morning. "He was so proud of his heritage. "

Warkoski said flags at town offices would fly at half mast until Friday when a private memorial service will be held in the Los Angeles area.

Knight was raised at a small house at 18 Allen St. His father was a Polish immigrant and was a bartender in town for many years. His mother was a housewife.

He graduated from Terryville High School in 1943. Henry Kornacki, a lifelong friend of Knight's, who was the toastmaster at the testimonial dinner in 1976, said he best remembers Knight "as an incredibly funloving person."

Kornacki, who attended grade school to high school with Knight, said he knew when they were in high school that his friend would have a future in show business.

"He was always pulling jokes and mimicking people. He was a great imitator," he said. "He was always a very bright person. The town will miss him dearly. "

The parade and testimonial dinner, he said, "were shining moments in Terryville history."

From a local paper obit in 1986