Sitcom Stars Who Died In 2024 And No One Noticed

What do an ex-convict, a stand-up comedian, an alcohol counselor, a Navy veteran, an Emmy-winning writer, and a painter have in common? They have all, at one time or another, entertained us on the small screen via that genre called sitcom. Furthermore, these multi-talented actors all died in 2024.

Most of the ten actors featured here, like 99-year-old Joyce Randolph, had left their acting days far behind them. But their work lives on in reruns, on record albums, and in art galleries. So while these sitcom stars died with little fanfare, they left an impact far beyond the TV screen. Richard Foronjy, for example, was known for turning his life around after serving a prison sentence. Jennifer Leak found a second career in real estate, and Elizabeth MacRae counseled those dealing with alcohol addiction. Rudy Moreno used comedy to raise money for inner-city kids, and Martin Mull was a trained painter who considered acting to be his day job to buy art supplies. These are the off-screen lives of these familiar faces who made us laugh all those years.

Jackie Gleason cast Joyce Randolph in "The Honeymooners" after seeing her on a gum commercial. Randolph played Trixie Norton, married to Art Carney's Ed Norton, and the couple were neighbors and best friends to squabbling married couple Ralph and Alice Kramden, played by Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows. Filmed with a live studio audience and featuring working-class characters instead of the rich and glamorous, "The Honeymooners" launched a new genre of sitcom, and expanded to a half-hour show for one memorable season from 1955 to 1956.

"When Jackie moved production of the show to Miami Beach when his variety show returned, it was just not convenient for me," Randolph told Forbes in an interview. "I chose not to continue." Randolph had another motive for leaving the show: that she and her real-life husband, Richard Lincoln, had a son together, and she wanted to spend time with her family. According to the AP, she once confessed, "I didn't miss a thing by not working all the time ... I didn't want a nanny raising [my] wonderful son."

Though "The Honeymooners," one of the best TV shows of the 1950s, lived on for more than half a century in reruns, Randolph said she wasn't paid residuals until "lost" episodes were discovered. Furthermore, when Randolph did try to work again, she struggled on account of being typecast. She and Meadows did revive their roles as Honeymooners wives in the 1991 sitcom "Honey I'm Home." The last surviving cast member of the sitcom to start all sitcoms, Randolph died of natural causes in New York City at the age of 99.

Richard Foronjy (pictured above, left) appeared in the popular sitcoms "Taxi," "Who's the Boss," "Silver Spoons," "M*A*S*H," and "The Bob Newhart Show." His film credits included the 1973 police drama "Serpico" and the 1984 cult-classic comedy "Repo Man." Foronjy was a master of drama and comedy, equally comfortable playing criminals and cops. 

Just as the movie Serpico was based on real life, Foronjy drew his inspiration for his crime drama roles from his own life as an ex-convict. "I grew up as an angry kid in Brooklyn. I didn't care about anything," Foronjy told UPI in an interview. "I was arrested for forgery, bank robbery, credit card rip-offs, assorted crimes, and skullduggery." An armed robbery conviction earned Foronjy over eight years at Sing Sing and Attica.

Foronjy, who'd dropped out before reaching high school, became a voracious reader in prison, and also learned to type. But his life-changing moment came about while watching "Kojak" on the prison TV. Upon seeing Telly Savalas in the title role, Foronjy knew that he, too, could be an actor. In fact, he'd been acting all along. "I wasn't thinking about acting when I conned people," Foronjy told The Hollywood Reporter. "But that's what I was doing." Upon his release from prison at the age of 32, he enrolled in a drama course, and within five years, he landed his first movie role. Foronjy died at the age of 86.

Although better known for her roles on soap operas like "The Young and the Restless" and "Another World," Jennifer Leak had a comic streak as well. She appeared on the beloved sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and starred with comedy great Lucille Ball in the 1968 movie "Yours, Mine, and Ours," playing Ball's daughter. It was on this set that she met her first husband, actor Tim Matheson. She later met James D'Auria while filming "Another World" in New York, to whom she was married for 47 years.

Leaving Hollywood behind, Leak worked as a real estate agent in East Hampton, New York, before she and D'Auria eventually retired to Florida. She was later diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurological disease, and received treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Dying at the age of 76, Leak donated her brain tissue to the organization for research.

Leak's husband D'Auria spoke kindly of her after her death, saying (via The East Hampton Star), "[She was] a shy and private person, never desiring to be the center of attention or having the need for an audience. She saved those feelings and exhibited them only when on camera, and then she became electric."

Dubbed the "godfather of Latino comedy" for his legendary stand-up act, Rudy Moreno also appeared in an impressive number of sitcoms, including "Everybody Loves Raymond," "George Lopez," "Arrested Development," and "Dave." Born and raised in Los Angeles, Moreno got his start in comedy when rock musician Rudy Salas told him he was funny enough to be a stand-up comedian. Moreno did just that, performing stand-up as the opening act for Salas' band Tierra. He went on to open for the Black Eyed Peas and Smokey Robinson.

Moreno made his TV debut on "Comedy Compadres," a show featuring Latino comics, after producer Jeff Valdez saw his act. Though he appeared on over a dozen different television shows and the 2022 movie "Father Stu" with Mark Walberg, stand-up remained his first love. For thirty years, Moreno and his wife Arlene organized "Komics for Kids," a charity event that raised money to buy presents for inner-city kids. He also hosted the popular live show "Rudy Moreno and Friends" at the Pasadena Ice House comedy club.

"He was a great mentor to many comics," Moreno's agent Mark Scroggs told USA Today. "[He] was a great comedy show host — which is the toughest job in comedy because you have to support and let others shine." Moreno died in Pasadena, California, at the age of 66, following complications from a stroke.

Elizabeth MacRae was best known from the 1960s sitcom "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.," a spin-off of "The Andy Griffith Show." MacRae played opposite the astonishingly talented Jim Nabors as his girlfriend Lou-Ann Poovie, the nightclub singer-turned-record shop clerk. A South Carolina native, MacRae had been working hard to lose her southern accent in Hollywood, but it was that genuine accent that landed her the role on the beloved series, she told The Fayetteville Observer. "[Producer Aaron Ruben] hired me on the spot ... and that was the birth of Lou-Ann Poovie."

MacRae also said that while working on the "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C," her husband and young daughter both died within a short time of each other. Nabors and his mother Mabel offered a place for MacRae to stay with them through that difficult time. Though she did not stay with them, she always remembered the kindness of their offer. "Jim was wonderful and Mavis was wonderful," MacRae said.

Though MacRae appeared in over 30 shows, including "I Dream of Jeannie," "Bonanza," and "Kojak," and starred in the soap opera "Guiding Light," she considered her crowning achievement to be what she did after leaving Hollywood. Returning to the East Coast, she worked as an alcohol counselor in Manhattan. MacRae reminisced to The Fayetteville Observer that when she received a hug from her first client, "that was my Academy Award right there." After retiring to Fayetteville, South Carolina, MacRae died in May at the age of 88.

Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, Terrence Beasor grew up in California and served in the U.S. Navy before discovering acting. He performed at the Pasadena Playhouse, then moved cross-country to work as a union actor with the Actors' Equity Association at Equity Library Theater of New York. It was there he met actress Muriel Minot when the two of them shared the stage in 1968, and they were later married. Beasor went on to earn a master's degree in fine arts at Brandeis University. He also acted and directed in greater Boston before moving with Minot to Hollywood. The couple appeared together on such diverse shows as "Gangster Chronicles" and "Days of Our Lives," performed together in live theater, and stayed married for 55 years. 

With recurring roles in "The Middle" and "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," Beasor also appeared in the sitcoms "Cheers," "Scrubs," "Suddenly Susan," "The Office," and "Parks and Recreation." A voice actor as well, Beasor lent his voice to "Jaws: The Revenge" and "Remington Steele." He is also recognizable to Star Trek fans for his voicework in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and video games from that franchise.

Survived by Minot, Beason died in Santa Monica at the age of 89.

Born in the Bronx, it is fitting that Hiram Kasten made a name for himself in a recurring role on the New York-based originator of Festivus, "Seinfeld." Kasten played Michael, co-worker to Elaine Benes, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Kasten and Jerry Seinfeld were friends, having met at The Comic Strip in New York City in the 1970s. A fixture on the New York comedy club scene, Kasten performed at a club called The Big Apple one night in 1981, and met his future wife and actress Diana Kisiel, who was waiting tables at the club. As their comedian friends started heading to the West Coast to break into TV, Kasten and Kisiel decided to make the move themselves in 1987.

Kasten went on to appear on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Mad About You," "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," "Cybill," "My Wife and Kids," and "Saved by the Bell." He also performed on stage, and one of his favorite roles was as Joey Bishop in the Las Vegas show "The Rat Pack."  Kasten and Kisiel retired to Batavia, New York, after spending 25 years in Hollywood.

Kasten had Crohn's disease for much of his life and was later diagnosed with prostate cancer. He stopped performing in 2017 as his health declined, but he still entertained friends in person. When he became too ill to travel, Kasten held long, laughter-filled meetings with friends on both coasts via Zoom. He died at the age of 71.

Known for playing accountant "Big Keith" Bishop on the British — and original version of — "The Office," Ewen MacIntosh told The Independent that he didn't have a character when the show started. He was hired as a permanent extra to fill a desk at the fictional headquarters of Wernham Hogg paper company, and his character developed as the show went on. 

For his own part, he was inspired by the 1984 comedy film "This Is Spinal Tap." MacIntosh told Vice in an interview, "I knew ["The Office"] was a mock documentary, and I was a big fan of 'Spinal Tap.' I always remember Christopher Guest, playing Nigel Tufnel, would just chew gum and look vacant. I thought, 'I'll try that and see what happens.' It worked out." And a star was born. MacIntosh impressed the writing team so much that they increasingly wrote him into scenes.

MacIntosh got his start as a student at Edinburgh University in Scotland, performing with the university comedy troupe. British actor Rufus Jones wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) that MacIntosh was "a familiar and hilarious member of the Edinburgh sketch scene" before making the jump to television. After "The Office," MacIntosh went on to appear in the BBC sitcom "Miranda," Ricky Gervais' dramedy "After Life," and the sketch comedy show "Little Britain." MacIntosh was scant on details when he informed fans on X that he had been admitted to the hospital in 2022, writing simply, "Bad times for me I'm afraid chums. Stay strong out there." He died two years later at the age of 50 in Darlington, England.

Joe Flaherty was a founding member of the famed comedy troupe "Second City" in Toronto, which gave birth to the careers of Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, and comedy legend Martin Short. Short would write later of his "Second City" cast member on the comedy website 800 Pound Gorilla, "He was a mentor, a director, and an inspiring improviser who gave us many of the tools we are still using in the careers he helped us kickstart. And he made us all laugh!"

Flaherty went on to write and star in the 1970s Canadian sketch comedy show "SCTV." Over the show's eight-year run, Flaherty won two Emmys for his writing. He later appeared on "Married... with Children," "That '70s Show", "The King of Queens," and "Family Guy." He charmed audiences with a memorable cameo in the 1989 futuristic science-fiction film "Back to the Future II," playing the Western Union Man who delivered a 70-year-old letter to Michael J. Fox's time-traveling character, Marty McFly. But perhaps Flaherty will be remembered most for his role as Harold Weir, father of teens, in the short-lived but fan-favorite 1999 sitcom "Freaks and Geeks." After a long retirement and a brief illness, Flaherty died at the age of 82.

A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, Martin Mull earned his master's degree in painting and then earned his living as a comedic singer-songwriter with seven albums and a Billboard Hot 100 song to his name. He opened for the up-and-coming and then mostly unknown young Bruce Springsteen in the early 1970s, as well as Frank Zappa and Randy Newman. "But I got sick of it. So I thought I'd try my hand at writing for television," Mull said to A.V. Club.

A meeting with TV producer Norman Lear did not get Mull the writing job he coveted, but it did get him an audition. Mull ended up playing Garth Gimble on the sitcom "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," and its 1977 spin-off "Fernwood Tonight." He went on to appear in popular sitcoms "Roseanne," "The Ellen Show," "Arrested Development," "Two and a Half Men," and "Veep."

Mull made clear in his A.V. Club interview that despite his success as an actor, he still considered himself a painter. "I've been painting all along," he said. "All of this has been a way to try to put paint on my table. You know, every painter I know has a day job. They're either teaching art at some college or driving a cab or whatever. And I just happened to luck into a day job that's extraordinary and a lot of fun and buys a lot of paint." Mull died on June 27 at the age of 80, and his artwork lives on at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art and other venues.