Emmy Award-winner Louie Anderson, the stand-up comedian who morphed into actor, author, animation star and game show host, has lost his battle with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a form of cancer. He was 68 years old.
Born in St. Paul Minnesota on March 24, 1953, Anderson made his network debut as a stand up comedian on NBC’s The Tonight Show in November 1984. After gaining early notoriety in comedy, he was cast in the pilot episode of ABC sitcom Perfect Strangers alongside Bronson Pinchot. But when the show was picked up he was replaced by Mark-Linn Baker.
Anderson’s early roles on television in the 1980s were guest spots on series Remington Steele and PBS anthology Better Times. On film, he made cameo appearances at the time in Cloak & Dagger and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off before getting a more prominent role in Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America (which he reprised in the 2021 sequel) and in the camp comedy The Wrong Guys.
In 1987, Anderson was featured on Showtime in his first comedy special. Busy with stand-up and more guest appearances (in sitcoms like Love & War and Grace Under Fire), Anderson created and produced a Saturday-morning animated comedy for Fox beginning in 1995 called Life With Louie. Based on Anderson's childhood with 10 siblings, a gentle mother and a loud, war-crazed father, it also detailed how he was picked on for his weight, and how he used comedy to deal with the teasing.
Life With Louie aired for three seasons and won two Daytime Emmy Awards.
In 1996, Anderson starred in his first regularly scheduled series - sitcom The Louie Show for CBS. But it was canceled after just six episodes.
Three years later, in 1999, he switched to game show host in the reboot of Family Feud, which he did through 2002 before being replaced by Richard Karn.
Following an array of other TV appearances (including comedy Scrubs; dramas Chicago Hope and Touched By an Angel; and reality/competition Splash), he landed the role of Christine Baskets on FX sitcom Baskets, which resulted in the Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series in 2016.
"My goal is that when you watch me, you might say, ‘That’s Louie Anderson,’ but within a few minutes I completely disappear and Christine completely emerges,” he said of his role in Baskets in an interview.
More recently, Anderson was a regular panelist on the TV game show Funny You Should Ask, and guest starred on series Young Sheldon, Search Party and Twenties.
Anderson is survived by his two sisters, Lisa and Shanna Anderson.
