Actor Art Carney, who played legendary sewer worker and sidekick Ed Norton on the landmark TV comedy The Honeymooners and won a Best Actor Oscar for Harry and Tonto, has died at the age of 85. According to a spokesman for a local funeral home, Carney passed away on Sunday at his Connecticut home and was buried in a private ceremony on Tuesday. Carney started his career doing voice-over work on '30s and '40s radio shows like The Land of the Lost and Gangbusters before moving to the television, then a nascent medium, in the early '50s. Carney's fame was launched when he created the iconic role of Ed Norton opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners, a part for which he won three Emmys. All told, Carney won seven Emmy Awards, most for his work opposite Gleason on The Jackie Gleason Show as well as The Honeymooners. The comedic actor also created the role of Felix Unger onstage in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple and made sporadic appearances in movies, always in supporting roles, through the '60s and '70s. It was his first lead role, as a retired teacher traveling cross country with his orange cat in 1974's Harry and Tonto, that won him an Oscar at the age of 56 and gave his career a second wind. Films such as The Late Show, House Calls and Going in Style followed, along with innumerable roles in TV movies through the early 90s. He is survived by three children, including actors Barbara Carney and Brian Carney. --Prepared by IMDb staff...
- 11/11/2003
- IMDb News
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