Actor Harvey (Herschel) Korman died 29 May 2008 of complications from an abdominal aortic aneurysm he suffered four months ago. Born 15 February 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, he won four Emmys and a Golden Globe for his work on The Carol Burnett Show in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Following World War II service in the Navy and then the Goodman School of Drama at the Chicago Art Institute, Korman moved to New York to try “to get on Broadway, on off-Broadway, under or beside Broadway,” as he said in a 1971 interview. But he had no luck, returned to the Chicago, and then decided to try Hollywood, figuring that “at least I’d feel warm and comfortable while I failed.” After three years of struggling, he landed a role on The Danny Kaye Show in 1964. He stayed with the show until its cancellation in 1967, and then moved on to The Carol Burnett Show. In 1977, he left for his own show, but The Harvey Korman Show failed to find an audience. As Korman said in a 2005 interview, “It takes a certain type of person to be a television star. I didn’t have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I’m fine.”
He was fine in several Mel Brooks movies: he was Attorney General Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles (1974) and the Count de Monet in History of the World: Part I (1981).
Korman’s other genre appearances include: The Ruby Princess Runs Away (2001), Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000), The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue (1998), Perversions of Science (1997), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), The Flintstones (1994), Alice in Wonderland (1985), The Invisible Woman (1983), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980), The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), The Wild Wild West (1968), Alice in Wonderland (1966), The Flintstones (1965-66), and The Munsters (1964-66).
Korman is survived by his second wife, Deborah Fritz, whom he married in 1982, and his four children: Maria and Christopher (children of his first marriage, to Donna Elhart, which ended in divorce in 1977) and Katherine and Laura.