This page uses content from the Ted Knight biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

For other people with the same name, see Ted Knight (disambiguation).

Ted Knight (December 7, 1923–August 26, 1986) was an American actor.

Born Tadeusz Wladyslaw Konopka to a Polish American family in Terryville, Connecticut, Knight dropped out of high school to enlist for military service in World War II, where his bravery was accordingly honored. During the postwar years, Knight studied acting in Hartford, Connecticut. He became proficient with puppets and ventriloquism, which led to steady work as a TV kiddie-show host. Knight spent most of the 1950s and 1960s doing commercial voice-overs and essaying minor TV and movie roles (he was the nonspeaking cop who was guarding Norman Bates at the end of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Knight's distinctive speaking voice brought him work as an announcer -- he narrated several animated television series including Super Friends -- and he appeared frequently in TV shows such as Bonanza, Get Smart and The Love Boat.

His role as the vain and untalented newscaster Ted Baxter in Mary Tyler Moore brought Knight widespread recognition, and his greatest success. He received six Emmy Award nominations for the role, winning the Emmy for "Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in Comedy", in 1973 and 1976. After the show concluded, Knight appeared in the film Caddyshack (1980), and played the lead role in the series Too Close For Comfort from 1980-1986.

He died on August 26, 1986 of colon cancer at the age of 62 and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Ted Knight has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to Television, at 6671 Hollywood Boulevard.

External links

• Podcast ending with an interview with Lydia Cornell (anecdotes about Ted Knight and his show Too Close For Comfort)

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.