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Published December 05, 2011, 08:07 AM

'Laugh-In' actor dead at 85

Alan Sues was a flamboyant and zany regular on the 1960s hit television show “Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.”

By: Associated Press report, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Alan Sues, a flamboyant and zany regular on the 1960s hit television show “Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,” has died.

Michael Gregg Michaud, a close friend for decades, told the Associated Press on Sunday that Sues died of cardiac arrest at his home in West Hollywood on Thursday. He was 85.

Sues began his career as a serious actor in director Elia Kazan's “Tea and Sympathy” on Broadway, but he became famous for his over-the-top comic characters.

They included “Big Al,” an effeminate sportscaster on “Laugh-In,” the TV phenomenon that made Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin famous.

Sues also donned tights as the commercial spokesman for Peter Pan peanut butter, and appeared in the 1964 “Twilight Zone” episode “The Masks,” which made him a regular at sci-fi autograph conventions for decades.

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