Actor, writer, producer Bill Idelson died 31 December 2007. He had been hospitalized since June after breaking his hip, and died of complications from that injury. Born 21 August 1919 in Forest Park, Illinois, he may be best known for playing Herman Glimcher, the mama’s-boy boyfriend of Rose Marie’s Sally Rogers character on several episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, but while he was appearing on that show and several others, he was also writing television episodes. He won two Writers Guild Awards for best episodic comedy: one for an episode of Get Smart and one for an episode of The Andy Griffith Show.
His genre appearances as an actor include episodes of: Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo (1979), The New Shmoo (1979), My Favorite Martian (1965), Thriller (1960), and The Twilight Zone (1960).
His genre writing credits include: one episode of Bewitched (1968), two episodes of Get Smart (1967), the screenplay for 1963’s The Crawling Hand, and one episode of The Twilight Zone (1961).
He started his acting career in 1931 as Skeezix on WGN’s Uncle Walt and Skeezix, a radio version of the comic strip Gasoline Alley. The next year, he was cast as Rush, the adopted son of unpretentious kitchenware company bookkeeper Victor Rodney Gook (Art Van Harvey) and his homebound wife, Sade (Bernardine Flynn) on Vic and Sade, which became a long-running serial.
Idelson joined the Navy during World War II, flew night fighter missions over Japan, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and four Air Medals.
He has taught a script-writing class for the last twenty years, and wrote books including The Story of Vic and Sade, Gibby (an autobiographical novel about a World War II fighter pilot), and Bill Idelson’s Writing Class.