Happy Days Richie Cunningham’s dad beloved TV actor TOM BOSLEY, 83, has just died.
Bosley passed at his home in Palm Springs.
Bosley’s agent, Sheryl Abrams, says Bosley died of heart failure at 4 a.m. Tuesday and she also confirmed he had been battling lung cancer.
TV Guide ranked Bosley’s Happy Days character No. 9 on its list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time” in 2004.
The show debuted in 1974 and ran for 11 seasons.
Bosley was born in Chicago, Ill in 1927 and despite playing numerous protestants and Catholic priests, he was actually Jewish!
Bosley served in the Navy before returning home to study at De Paul University. Intrigued with acting,
he enrolled at the Radio Institute of Chicago and began appearing in radio dramas. He made his theatrical debut in a the boxing drama Golden Boy.
After moving to New York, he learned "the method"at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg.
Making his off-Broadway debut in “Thieves Highway” in 1955, Tom struggled to find other acting gigs. He supported himself as a temporary office worker, a doorman at Central Park’s Tavern on the Green and a hat checker at Lindy’s deli.
Finally, Bosley broke through, winning an Tony for his turn as feisty Depression-era New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in the Pulitzer-Prize-winning 1959 musical Fiorello!
He also crafted a memorable role in the Peter Sellers comedy The World of Henry Orient.
After Happy Days, Bosley would frequently costar with long time pal Angela Lansbury on her series, Murder She Wrote as Sheriff Amos Tucker.
He also was the crime-solving priest in TV’s The Father Dowling Mysteries, which ran from 1989 to 1991..
HENRY WINKLER who played The Fonz, mourned, "I’m in shock, I really am. I spoke to him just a few weeks ago and he seemed to be getting his strength back."
“Tom was my husband for 11 years and the father of the company in many ways," MARION ROSS, Tom’s Happy Days costar wife, told The ENQUIRER exclusively.
"He was so sweet; he could fix a joke on the spot. We made a perfect couple – I played piccolo to his tuba.”
Ironically, when first offered the costarring role in Happy Days, Bosley first turned it down but changed his mind upon rereading it.
"The father/son situation was written so movingly, I fell in love with the project,”Tom said in an interview.
Bosley is survived by his wife, Patricia Bosley, his brother Richard Bosley, his daughter Amy Baer, stepdaughters Kimberly diBonaventura and Jamie Van Meter and seven grandchildren.
first posted: 120 PM EDT
