Garry Shandling, the standup comic whose dry delivery made mundane subjects funny and became the trademark of his revered TV shows, died suddenly Thursday.
He was 66.
Shandling was home alone when he apparently suffered a massive heart attack around 10:30 a.m., a source close to the comedian told the Daily News.
“He was already going into cardiac arrest,” the source said. When paramedics arrived, they had to break down his door, the source said.
“It’s a shock. He seemed pretty healthy, took care of himself. There were no known heart issues at all in his history,” the source said.
Shandling was transported to St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, where he was pronounced dead, the source confirmed.
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The news stunned fellow comedians who saw Shandling over the weekend. He appeared in good health in a photo with Kathy Griffin and “Better Call Saul” star Bob Odenkirk that she posted Sunday on Twitter.
“Very, very sad. I just saw him in a room full of funny people at Kathy Griffin’s house on Sunday, and we all deferred to Garry when he spoke. He is a king in our world,” comedian Jeff Ross told the Daily News Thursday.
“Now like all great entertainers, he leaves us wanting more,” Ross said.
“I can’t believe this,” Odenkirk tweeted after the news broke. “Very sad to say goodbye so abruptly.”
Odenkirk called Shandling a “guiding voice of comedy” in a statement to The News.
“He set the standard and we’re all still trying to meet it. He gave us all opportunities to learn how to do the best work of our lives. But, more importantly, as I knew him these last few years, he was a person who never stopped trying to be a better person,” Odenkirk said.
Best known for a pair of critically acclaimed television shows, “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” (1986-1990) and “The Larry Sanders Show” (1992-1998), Shandling has long been considered an institution by his fellow comedians.
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“Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing,” Judd Apatow, who wrote and produced episodes for “The Larry Sanders Show,” said Thursday in a statement to The News.
“It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment,” Apatow said. “I just don’t know how to sum up someone I loved so much who taught me everything I know and was always so kind to me. I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better. “
Born in Chicago in 1949 and raised in Tuscon, Ariz., Shandling started his showbiz career in the seventies writing for the sitcoms “Sanford and Son” and “Welcome Back Kotter.”
Then a 1977 car accident that left him critically injured led to a different road — standup comedy.
“The accident gave me some actual insight into life and its impermanence and there is something more to it than what meets the eye,” Shandling told the Archive of American Television last year. “And I realized I best try to figure out who I authentically was and I could do that through standup.”
The popularity of his gigs led to a star-making turn on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” four years later. He soon became a recurring guest, which in turn led to a deal for “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” a parody of a sitcom on the fledgling cable network Showtime.
Shandling truly hit his stride with “The Larry Sanders Show,” an HBO comedy about a fake late night talk show that would win three Emmy Awards over its six-season run.
Big screen success was more elusive, though his supporting work in movies like “Mixed Nuts” (Stanley) and “Zoolander” (2001) usually stole every frame.
Shandling was last seen on the big screen playing a corrupt senator in the 2014 superhero flick, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”
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More recently, he rode shotgun in a Porsche with his long-time friend Jerry Seinfeld for a January episode of the online comedy series, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”
The episode, titled “It’s Great That Garry Shandling Is Still Alive,” included a bit in which Shandling revealed he suffered from hyperparathyroidism, a condition where an excess of parathyroid hormone in the bloodstream affects calcium absorption.
“So it turns out I had a hyperparathyroid gland that was undiagnosed because the symptoms mirror the exact same symptoms an older Jewish man would have,” he joked to Seinfeld.
“Which is, you know, lethargic, you get puffy, you get heavy, you kind of feel like you want a divorce even if you’re not married,” he joked.
Shandling dated Playboy model and actress Linda Doucett from 1987 until 1994 and also was linked to actress Sharon Stone, but he never married or had kids.
“Garry Shandling was a very special comedian with a beautifully unpredictable mind,” Steve Martin said on Twitter.
“Sad today,” actress Kristen Chenoweth tweeted. “My friend @GarryShandling passed. He encouraged me from the very start. A few weeks ago he told me life was short and enjoy it.”