by Katherine Adams

Created on: December 06, 2011   Last Updated: December 11, 2011

It seems fitting that Alan Sues reportedly died from cardiac arrest while watching TV Dec. 1, 2011. Despite over five decades of entertaining audiences on Broadway, providing film voice-overs, and traveling across the country with a comedy act he wrote and performed with his then-wife Phyllis, memories of Sues will inevitably be tied to “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” one of the small screen’s most unusual overnight sensations.

For Sues, 85, his more serious roles will be eclipsed by the over-the-top, flamboyant persona he played on “Laugh-In,” where he was a regular cast member from 1968 – 1972. The show included newcomers such as Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson and a number of soon-to-be-bigger stars. The variety show was both a reflection of and a satire of the era; the perfect fit for a man who invented outrageous characters like “Big Al,” an effeminate broadcaster, and “Uncle Al,” a children’s show host who was always hung-over while chatting with the kids. He almost always portrayed a stereotypical gay man, yet the actor himself refused to admit his own sexuality for fear of losing jobs.

Sues had performed in serious roles before joining the hip new TV comedy show, but his naturally humorous personality and “Laugh-In” stardom stereotyped him more than his sexuality. When “Laugh-In” co-star Ruth Buzzi heard of his death, she said, “Alan Sues was one of those guys even funnier in person than on camera; across a dinner table, over the phone ... hysterical. We’ll miss him.”

George Schlatter, who created and produced the show that showcased a catalog of catch-phrases, and celebrities, including Presidential candidate Richard Nixon, who agreed to deliver the program's best-known line, “sock it to me,” echoed Buzzi’s sentiments.

“Sues was ‘a free spirit,’ an ‘outrageous human being’ and a love child,’” he told The Los Angeles Times after Sues’ death. “He walked on the stage and everybody just felt happy.”

Alan Grigsby Sues, born in Ross, California on March 7, 1926, was the older of two sons in a family of racehorse breeders. But in his teens, he jumped the fence at Paramount Studios to watch Bing Crosby film a scene in the 1942 classic, “Holiday Inn.” That experience was the turning point in his life.

Surprisingly,

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