Rip Taylor (1935–2019), zany comedian

Rip Taylor was a popular comic known for his outrageous personality. He was called the “king of confetti” for punctuating the end of his jokes by throwing a bucket of paper confetti into the audience. He was a popular game show panelist, appearing often during the heyday of the genre on “The Hollywood Squares” and “Match Game” and hosted the “$1.98 Beauty Show.” Taylor was a regular guest on talk shows and appeared on many TV series and had a funny role in “Wayne’s World II.” His signature bit before paper confetti was to pretend cry after reading a joke which led him to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” where Sullivan forgot his name and introduced him as “The Crying Comedian.” His publicist Harlan Boll, who announced Taylor's death to the Hollywood Reporter, said Taylor was survived by his longtime partner Robert Fortney.