Marty Ingels obit

Marty Ingels dies at 79; comedian known for his raspy voice and marriage to Shirley Jones

 

He was not on the list.

After Marty Ingels and his wife, the actress Shirley Jones, went through a painful, yearlong separation, they arranged to meet for a reconciliation session at their therapist’s office.

Ingels, a compulsive comic who had a brief TV and film career but never entirely left the stage, entered wearing a big hat and playing a trombone.

“Well, looks like you haven’t changed a bit, Marty,” the therapist said.

The couple got back together, and remained happily married.

Ingels, a raspy-voiced Brooklynite who co-starred with John Astin in the early-1960s sitcom “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster,” died at Tarzana Medical Center on Wednesday. He was 79.

He had suffered a stroke, said Jones’ agent Milton Suchin.

Ingels also appeared on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “The Addams Family” and other sitcoms. He played comic roles in a number of films, including “The Horizontal Lieutenant” (1962); “Wild and Wonderful” (1964); “A Guide for the Married Man” (1967) and “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” (1969).

In his later years, he was the cartoon voice of Pac-Man, and did voice-overs on many other cartoons and commercials.

His life spun out of control in the early 1970s, when he was swamped with financial problems, went through a divorce and endured what he later described as a nervous breakdown on “The Tonight Show.”

“I was doing a stand-up thing and all of a sudden my knees started to buckle,” he told entertainment writer Kliph Nesteroff in 2012. “I actually passed out. I went home and spent several months in my house and became a very serious recluse.”

Over the years, medication — and, of course, humor — helped.

“The ultimate oxymoron: I was once invited to an agoraphobic convention,” he said. “What? How can that be? I pictured that it would be a giant stadium — with nobody there.”

Ingels emerged from his isolation and eventually found a new line of work: Booking celebrities in commercials.

“Basically, I dropped out of show business because I couldn’t control anything,” he told the Associated Press in 1990. “Whether or not you worked as a comedian was up to some guy with an anonymous list somewhere. Now, I’m in control.”

Ingels signed Rudy Vallee to pitch record albums on TV. He also brokered deals for Orson Welles, Howard Cosell, Don Knotts, Farrah Fawcett Majors and other stars.

But he was best known as half of what many thought to be one of Hollywood’s oddest couples.

Jones, who played the mother on “The Partridge Family,” was “a golden girl of film,” the Times wrote in 1979. “Sweet-voiced, radiantly pretty, cheerfully self-assured, she combines restraint, inner calm and discreet understatement.”

Ingels, meanwhile was “a sort of Woody Allen character who often sees his special niche as a shelf in the Lost & Found department, a self-doubting comic-turned-talent agent who talks at top speed and makes no effort to mask his inner turbulence.”

When Ingels was courting her, he pulled out all the stops. At studio lunch breaks when she was filming a TV movie, he showed up in a 38-foot motor home with Champagne, mood music and her favorite Cobb salad from Hollywood’s Brown Derby.

“Imagine my surprise to see him standing there, dressed in a pure-silk smoking jacket with an ascot round his neck,” she wrote in her 2012 memoir.

His promotions on behalf of Jones, whom he married in 1977, were only a little less manic than his comedy.

In 2006, he spent $150,000 and “peppered journalists with flowers, candy, balloons and blustery phone calls” to build buzz for his wife’s Emmy nomination, The Times wrote. In fact, she was nominated for both an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild award for her supporting role in the ABC film “Hidden Places.”

When the Emmy ceremony rolled around, Jones was out of town on another film. But Ingels, decked out in black tie, showed up on the red carpet toting a life-size cardboard cutout of her, which, under duress, he was forced to stash in a checkroom.

“He often drove me crazy,” Jones said in a statement this week, “but there’s not a day I won’t miss him and love him to my core.”

Born in Brooklyn on March 9, 1936, Martin Ingerman came from a family of dentists. His uncle, Abraham Beame, was mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977.

Ingels went to Queens College for six weeks, held a series of odd jobs, and served in the Army. Attracted to show business, he worked in summer stock theater and eventually moved to California, where he acted at the Pasadena Playhouse.

After his acting career ended, he stayed in the headlines with occasional lawsuits. In 1984, he and Jones settled their case against the National Enquirer, which falsely crowed in a headline that “Husband’s Bizarre Behavior Is Driving Shirley Jones to Drink.” The supermarket tabloid had to apologize and pay the couple unspecified damages.

Ingels unsuccessfully sued radio personality Tom Leykis for alleged age discrimination. Ingels, who periodically called radio shows under assumed names, complained that Leykis wouldn’t let him talk on a show about dating because Ingels told the producer he was 60. (He was actually 65 at the time.)

“You’re way too old, Pops,” Leykis told him. “Call a big-band station.”

In addition to Jones, Ingels is survived by his stepsons Shaun, Patrick and Ryan Cassidy; 12 grandchildren; and a niece, Laura Ingerman.

Ingels and Jones spent a lot of time at their vacation home in Fawnskin, a tiny community on Big Bear Lake. To thwart development, they bought property there that they turned into a community park. A chunk of iron girder from the World Trade Center sits on the land, which they dedicated to 9/11’s victims and first responders.

Over the years, the couple attended a number of Republican functions. At a Beverly Hills reception, Ingels met Barbara Bush.

“Hello, my name is Marty Ingels,” he said. “I’m Shirley Jones’ husband.”

“My name is Barbara Bush,” she responded. “And I’m George Bush’s wife. Don’t you hate these parties? So boring.”

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1961      The Ladies Man                 Marty Ingels      

Armored Command        Pinhead               

1962      The Horizontal Lieutenant            Yeoman Leo Buckles      

1964      Wild and Wonderful       Doc Bailey          

1967      The Busy Body   Willie    

A Guide for the Married Man      Technical Adviser (Meat Eater)  

1968      For Singles Only                Archibald Baldwin           

1969      If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium       Bert Greenfield

The Picasso Summer       Man at Party     

1974      How to Seduce a Woman              Jim        

1975      Linda Lovelace for President        Ronald Trixie     

1990      Instant Karma    Jon Clark             

1992      The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them                      Uncredited

Round Numbers               Al Schweitzer    

1998      The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story                Hathi (voice)     

1999      Kartenspieler     Max      

2003      Down the Barrel               Richard Chainey               

2007      Chasing Robert Porn Shop Manager       

2008      Parasomnia         Mr. Boudreau    Uncredited

Wednesday Again            Xander

2013      A Strange Brand of Happy             Mack    

2015      Promoted            Murray Silver    

2021      Bruce the Challenge        Gramps                Post-production

Final role

Posthumous Release

 

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1958      The Phil Silvers Show      Navy Cook           Episode: "Bilko Joins the Navy"

1960      Peter Loves Mary             Joey Vaughn       Episode: "Peter Joins a Committee"

Dan Raven           Benny   2 episodes

1960–1962          Hennesey            Patient, Waiter 4 episodes

1961      Manhunt                             Episode: "The Death Trap"

The Ann Sothern Show Erskine Wild       Episode: "Always April"

The Aquanauts Waiter Episode: "The Tidal Wave Adventure"

The Law and Mr. Jones Tony      Episode: "The Broken Hand"

The Detectives Lazarus Episode: "Tobey's Place

Pete and Gladys                Man       Episode: "Eyewitness"

Follow the Sun Georgie                Episode: "The Girl from the Brandenburg Gate"

1961–1962          The Dick Van Dyke Show               Sol Pomeroy       2 episodes

1962      The Joey Bishop Show    Freddy Episode: "Once a Bachelor"

1962–1963          I'm Dickens, He's Fenster              Arch Fenster      32 episodes

1964      Duncan Be Careful                           TV Movie

Burke's Law        Wally     Episode: "Who Killed Madison Cooper?"

1966      The Addams Family         Dr. Marvin P. Gunderson              Episode: "Cat Addams"

Bewitched           Dan        Episode: "Dangerous Diaper Dan"

1967      The Phyllis Diller Show   Norman Krump 7 episodes

Good Morning World     Jimmy   Episode: "Knits to You, Sir"

1968      Kiss Me Kate       Gangster              Television film

1969      Motormouse and Autocat            Autocat (voice) TV Series

1969–1971          Cattanooga Cats               Autocat (voice) TV Series

1971      The Partners      Eddie Polaski      1 episode

1972      Banacek               Marty Ingels       Episode: "Let's Hear It for a Living Legend"

1973      The Rookies        Master of Ceremonies   Episode: "Down Home Boy"

1973–1974          Adam-12              Siphoner, David Harwood             2 episodes

1975      The Great Grape Ape Show          Beegle Beagle (voice)     TV Series

The New Tom & Jerry Show         Beegle Beagle (voice)     TV Series

The Ghost Busters           Billy the Kid        Episode: "They Went Thataway"

1975–1976          Police Story        Howie, Marty Abbott      2 episodes

1977      Chips     Sidney   Episode: "Hustle"

1978      The Love Boat    Joe Nash              Episode: "The Man Who Loved Women/A Different Girl/Oh, My Aching Brother"

1979      Family   Gip Goddard      Episode: "Going Straight"

1982      Christmas Comes to Pac-Land     Pac-Man (voice)               

1982-1983          Pac-Man              Pac-Man (voice)                42 episodes including 2 specials

1990      The Munsters Today       Ivan        Episode: "Never Say Die"

1990–1991          Murder, She Wrote         Joe Gelardi, Seymour Densch      2 episodes

1991      The New Adam-12           Mr. Edwards       Episode: "Crack House

What a Dummy                 Leonard                Episode: "The Vacation That Never Was"

1991–1992          Darkwing Duck The Devil (voice)               2 episodes

1995      Burke's Law        Christoph Kohl   Episode: "Who Killed the World's Greatest Chef?"

Deadly Games   Hank      Episode: "One Mean Mother"

1997      Baywatch             Prospector          Episode: "Eel Nino"

1998      Walker, Texas Ranger     Murray Episode: "Crusader"

2006      Z-Squad                Butler (voice)     Episode: "Pilot"

ER           Mr. Gallagher     Episode: "Heart of the Matter"

2010      CSI: Crime Scene Investigation    Marty Felnick     Episode: "Meat Jekyll"

2013      New Girl               Pickled Patron   Episode: "The Box"

2014      Burt Paxton: Private Detective    Grandpa               TV Series short

2015      The Middle Ages               Pop-pop, Richard, Willy 3 episodes

Final television role

Video games

Year       Title       Role

1997      Zork: Grand Inquisitor    Griff