HOLLYWOOD -- George Gobel, the folksy, flat-topped commedian whose 60-year entertainment career spanned Broadway, feature films and TV, died Sunday from complications stemming from arterial bypass surgery. He was 71.
Gobel was perhaps best known for hosting several TV variety comedy shows during the early days of the medium.
In his later years he was a fixture on the syndicated 'Hollywood Squares' game show and made several appearances on the 'Tonight Show,' where his laconic wisecracks made him an audience favorite.
Although his first aspiration was to become a professional baseball player, Gobel traded his bat for a guitar in his early teens, joining a group of country and western entertainers on the WLS' 'Barn Dance' in Gobel's home town of Chicago.
Comedy did not become part of Gobel's repertoire until his Air Force days during World War II. Although he wanted to be a fighter pilot, he was assigned as a B-26 pilot instructor in Frederic, Okla.
As Gobel recalled, 'You might laugh at that, but we must have done a good job down there because not one enemy plane got past Tulsa.'
During his Air Force career, Gobel was pressed into service by his fellow officers as an entertainer. He augmented his song and guitar sessions with off-beat stories about fictional mishaps that always seemed to plague him. It was a routine he later would adapt for his nightclub and TV act.
After leaving the service Gobel played small clubs, hotels and county fairs, slowly rising to top supper clubs and hotel engagements.
His first TV appearance in 1952 was followed by guest apearances on virtually every variety show, including 40 guest shots on 'The Garry Moore Show.'
After seven consecutive appearances on NBC's 'Saturday Night Revue' in 1954, the network gave him his own vehicle, 'The George Gobel Show.'
Now considered a classic, the program was the top-rated comedy show for the next three years.
In the mid 1950s, he starred in two feature films, 'The Birds and the Bees' and 'I Married a Woman.'
Gobel made his Broadway debut in 1961 in a musical adaptation of George Abbot's 'Three Men on a Horse.' He also toured the United States in two Neil Simon comedies, 'The Odd Couple' and 'The Last of the Red Hot Lovers.'
Even though he won Emmy and Peabody awards, Gobel also did many voice-overs for TV commercials.
Gobel summed up his self-deprecating approach to comedy when he once asked Johnny Carson during a guest appearance on the 'Tonight Show,' 'Did you ever feel as if the whole world was a tuxedo, and you were a pair of brown shoes?'
Gobel died early Sunday morning at Encino Hospital from complications resulting from femoral arterial bypass surgery, a family spokesman said.
He is survived by his wife, who he affectionately called 'spooky old Alice,' a son, Gregg, and two daughters, Georgia Bryan and Leslie McIntosh.
Funeral services were scheduled for Thursday at St. Cyril's of Jerusalem Church in Encino.
