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Bob Einstein Dies: ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Actor Who Created Super Dave Osborne Character Was 76
Bob Einstein, a two-time Emmy winner who has recurred on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm since its launch and created the wacky Super Dave Osborne character, died today in Indian Wells, CA. He was 76 and recently had been diagnosed with cancer.Best known to today’s viewers for playing the serious, often surly but always hilarious Marty Funkhouser on Curb, Einstein was a foil for its creator-star Larry David. He appeared in nearly two dozen episodes of the series dating from, 2004 to the most recent season.But Einstein first made his name as a writer. His career dates to the 1960s, when he won his first Emmy as part of the writing team for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, whose staff also included Steve Martin. Einstein went on to earn Emmy noms as a writer on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour in 1972 and 1974 and two more for writing on Dick Van Dyke’s mid-‘70s series Van Dyke and Company. Einstein also won his other Emmy as a producer for that show, sharing the 1977 award for Outstanding Comedy Series.
The older brother of Albert Brooks, he was born Stewart Robert Einstein on November 20, 1942, in Los Angeles. Their mom Thelma Leeds was an actress, and their father, Harry Einstein (aka Parkyakarkus), was a comic, writer and actor. When Milton Berle and other comics told jokes at his father’s 1958 funeral, the teenage Einstein decided he would never go into comedy.Instead, he went to college and played basketball at Chapman University and then pursued a career in advertising. But when he did a TV performance on a local cable show for a friend, pretending to be the man who installed the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it caught the eye of Tom Smothers. After Smothers invited the 26-year old to the set, Einstein recalled how it transformed his life. “I go over and now I’m sitting and watching rehearsals and my mind is burning and all of sudden out of nowhere I want this, a bee has stung me in the back, and I want this.”Einstein’s most memorable character on the Smothers Brothers show, Officer Judy, famously gave Liberace a speeding ticket for playing the piano too fast in a 1969 episode. “Tom Smothers made our life by giving us that,” Einstein said in 2017.He executive produced, wrote and appeared as the bumbling Super Dave Osborne on numerous shows including the sketch comedy show, Bizarre from 1979-85, on the self-titled Super Dave from 1987-91 on Showtime and most recently in 2009 on Super Dave’s SpikeTacular, all of which he produced with his longtime partner, Allan Blye. From falling off Toronto’s CN Tower to being crushed by a wrecking ball to being swept off the top of a bus while singing “King of the Road,” Super Dave failed on every pre-Jackass stunt.
The older brother of Albert Brooks, he was born Stewart Robert Einstein on November 20, 1942, in Los Angeles. Their mom Thelma Leeds was an actress, and their father, Harry Einstein (aka Parkyakarkus), was a comic, writer and actor. When Milton Berle and other comics told jokes at his father’s 1958 funeral, the teenage Einstein decided he would never go into comedy.Instead, he went to college and played basketball at Chapman University and then pursued a career in advertising. But when he did a TV performance on a local cable show for a friend, pretending to be the man who installed the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it caught the eye of Tom Smothers. After Smothers invited the 26-year old to the set, Einstein recalled how it transformed his life. “I go over and now I’m sitting and watching rehearsals and my mind is burning and all of sudden out of nowhere I want this, a bee has stung me in the back, and I want this.”Einstein’s most memorable character on the Smothers Brothers show, Officer Judy, famously gave Liberace a speeding ticket for playing the piano too fast in a 1969 episode. “Tom Smothers made our life by giving us that,” Einstein said in 2017.He executive produced, wrote and appeared as the bumbling Super Dave Osborne on numerous shows including the sketch comedy show, Bizarre from 1979-85, on the self-titled Super Dave from 1987-91 on Showtime and most recently in 2009 on Super Dave’s SpikeTacular, all of which he produced with his longtime partner, Allan Blye. From falling off Toronto’s CN Tower to being crushed by a wrecking ball to being swept off the top of a bus while singing “King of the Road,” Super Dave failed on every pre-Jackass stunt.
