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IN MEMORY OF COMIC WALLY COX #02 |
Updated: April 22, 2023
Born: December 06, 1924
Died: February 15, 1973
American actor Wally Cox looked and played the role of the bespectacled, introverted intellectual
both before the cameras and in life. Fascinated with all things scientific and devoted to the study
of insects, Cox seemed as unlikely a candidate for major stardom as he was an improbable roommate
for Marlon Brando. In fact, he was both. While building his reputation in small clubs as a
monologist, Cox shared quarters with Brando, his best friend since childhood. Cox didn't really tell
jokes in his club act; he would relate the offbeat exploits of his boyhood pal Dufo or do a dead-on
imitation of his humorless, doltish Army drill sergeant; these were characterizations rather than
routines, a gentler version of the sort of work done years later by Whoopi Goldberg.
Playing occasional small parts on TV (he appeared very briefly as a baker in the 1952 film The Sniper,
minus his familiar eyeglasses), Cox was tapped by producer Fred Coe to appear in a 1952 summer-replacement
comedy series on NBC, Mr. Peepers, where he played Robinson Peepers, the shy, knowledgeable high school
teacher at Jefferson High. Mr. Peepers garnered excellent ratings and won numerous awards, including an
Emmy for Cox. As big a star as he would ever be, Cox was rushed into numerous nightclub engagements, which
unfortunately fell flat because of inappropriate bookings and because audiences didn't want to see Cox as
anyone other than Peepers. A 1955 sitcom, The Adventures of Hiram Holliday, starred Wally as an unlikely
globe-trotting adventurer; alas, it was scheduled directly opposite ABC's powerhouse Disneyland. Cox would
spend most of the rest of his career playing variations of Peepers on other star's sitcoms and variety
series, occasionally breaking the mold by playing a murderer or bon vivant. He also tried his hand as a
playwright, a field in which he displayed considerable skill. Once again under contract to NBC in the mid
'60s, Cox became a regular on the comedy quiz show Hollywood Squares, where he adopted the image of a
bored know-it-all. It is this Wally Cox that most viewers remember, not the brilliant comic actor who
convinced his '50s fans that he was Mr. Peepers, not just a man playing a part. Wally Cox died of a
sudden heart attack in 1973; he was cremated, and his ashes were discreetly scattered at an undisclosed
spot (and in defiance of municipal laws) by his old friend and ex-roommate Marlon Brando.
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