Yesterday’s Happen lauded Doris Day. We love a good lauding and we love Doris Day. One of her big hits was Que Sera, Sera, which in American means “Whatever will be, will be.” So she was years ahead of her time in proclaiming DW’s mantra: Whatever Happen, Happen. 

 As you know.

But the heartbreak continued with the Tuesday news that Tim Conway died at 85. 

Not so heartbreaking that Tim Conway at 85 actually died, although his passing hurts DW. Pretty badly actually. DW took a mental knee. Had too. Loved him. He was a stud. More on that in a sec. But it’s this…

Tuesday I told Gary (one of my many bosses) that Conway had died, knowing it wouldn’t register. It did not. Of course Gary is one of my former Little Leaguers—I used to be taller than he was—and he is 30 or 31ish, and it is not unusual that he has grown (and is married, with children: the whole system is breaking down!) because it seems all of my former Little Leaguers have done the same thing—they might not have kids but they have grown, without exception—and it is not unusual that Gary is one of my bosses because most everyone I know is my boss.

So what broke my heart is that he could not enjoy Conway at a certain time in America when Conway would make you wet your pants. From laughing.

Jackie Gleason. Art Carney. Richard Pryor. Have they never heard of these people? Mercy!

One of the secretly funniest men ever, Tim Conway appeared as a guest star on The Carol Burnett Show for eight seasons before becoming a regular in 1975. I read that he won a Golden Globe Award for the series in 1976 and Emmys in 1973, 1977 and 1978.

All i know is I could not wait to see him and that I knew he would make me laugh. A genius.

The greatest thing was watching him make one of his cast members, Harvey Korman, laugh during one of their skits. Gold. That’s how funny he was. He made his co-workers, comedians, laugh.

-30-

Just a few things lingering on the DW notepad …

** DORIS DAY, et. al.: Here at DW, we hate it when aging stars move on to the Happy Hunting Ground — probably not as much as they do — but at 97 years of age, this one didn’t exactly come as shocking news. I wasn’t around for all of that Pillow Talk business, but she was America’s Sweetheart for a certain period of time and that’s gotta count for something. I picked up the scent in time for the Doris Day Show, which ran on CBS for five years until 1973, a period of time in which I had little to do other than watch TV and do homework. Come to find out, she hated doing the show but had to do it because her no-good ex-husband had put her in so much debt that she didn’t have any choice. I remember a lot of “Que Sera, Sera” and that it co-starred McLean Stevenson before he high-tailed it to M*A*S*H, the last good career move he ever made. Doris basically shut it down after that, spending her time as an animal welfare activist and not playing golf at Pebble Beach, even though she lived down the street.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s word that Peggy Lipton of Mod Squad fame has also passed away at age 72. The Mod Squad was a lot more cutting edge than my pre-teen sensibilities were aware of; I just knew she forever set the bar for blond women with incredibly straight hair. (She married music legend Quincy Jones and is the mother of actress Rashida Jones.)

Coincidentally, both the Doris Day Show and Mod Squad ran during the same five-year period, yet couldn’t have been any more dissimilar.

** TECH vs. LSU: It was announced last week that these two will be playing a basketball exhibition game in November to help raise money for the tornado relief efforts in Ruston. Good for LSU, which has been going through some issues of its own with the basketball program lately. But along comes Tech asking for a solid and they came through. Not every school would do that.

** CONFERENCE FINALS: Do you think the suits at the NBA are thrilled at halving a team from Canada (Toronto), a team from almost Canada (Milwaukee) and a team in one of the smallest markets in the country (Portland) as three of the four remaining? They say the NBA is too predictable. Tell me again who predicted that before the season started?

Though Golden State and Milwaukee are the favorites, I have a sneaking suspicion that one of those could get taken down.