Marty Ingels, famed 1960s comic, dead at 79

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Marty Ingels, Hollywood star and renowned television personality, died Wednesday after suffering a massive stroke. He was 79 years old.

The famous comic and longtime husband to actress Shirley Jones was pronounced dead at the Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles county.

Ingels was best known for his eccentric humor in the 1960s and beyond, appearing in dozens of roles in programs like I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched and Pete and Gladys.

On the big screen, Ingels took several supporting roles in films like 1961's Armoured Command, 1964's Wild and Wonderful and 1969's The Picasso Summer, among others. By the 1970s, the funnyman took to work behind the scenes, becoming a busy voice actor and eventual owner of his own talent firm, Ingels, Inc..

Ingels and his wife of 40 years, Shirley Jones, met at a Hollywood party in 1974 and married three years later. In 1990, the couple published the autobiography, Shirly & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story, to detail how "a Jewish kid from Brooklyn" and "Miss America," could fall in love.

"He often drove me crazy, but there's not a day I won't miss him and love him to my core," Jones said after her husband's death, according to Variety. Ingels is survived by Jones, three stepsons, a niece and 12 grandchildren.