Pat McCormick turned writing skills to comedy

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, July 31, 2005

Pat McCormick, a walrus-mustachioed comedy writer for Phyllis Diller, Red Skelton and others who also appeared on “The Tonight Show” and had a role in three “Smokey and the Bandit” movies, died Friday. He was 78.

McCormick died at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif., spokeswoman Jennifer Fagen said Saturday.

He was admitted to the facility in 1998 after a stroke left him partially paralyzed.

McCormick dropped out of Harvard Law School to pursue advertising work but abandoned that career when he began earning money writing jokes for television and nightclub performers.

McCormick eventually became a writer for “The Jack Paar Show.” He was a regular on “The New Bill Cosby Show” in 1972.

McCormick also wrote for and made scores of appearances on “The Tonight Show.”

Wim Duisenberg helped create the euro currency

Wim Duisenberg, the former European Central Bank chief who helped create the euro currency, was found dead Sunday in his swimming pool in southeastern France, officials said. He was 70.

An autopsy showed Duisenberg had drowned after an unspecified cardiac problem, a regional prosecutor said. He was found unconscious in the swimming pool at his home in the town of Faucon and could not be resuscitated, police said.

Duisenberg “died a natural death, due to drowning, after a cardiac problem,” said Jean-Francois Sanpieri, a state prosecutor in the nearby town of Carpentras.

Duisenberg was the first head of the ECB, serving from 1998 to 2003. Having shepherded the euro through its introduction in 1999, he became known as the father of the 12-nation European common currency.

Hildegarde was called incomparable in cabaret

Hildegarde, the “incomparable” cabaret singer whose career spanned almost seven decades, has died. She was 99.

The performer, who was credited with starting the single-name vogue among entertainers, died Friday at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital, said Don Dellair, her longtime friend and manager.

Born Hildegarde Loretta Sell in Adell, Wis., she was known for 70 years simply as “The Incomparable Hildegarde,” a title bestowed on her by columnist Walter Winchell.

During the peak of her popularity in the 1930s and ’40s, she was booked in cabarets and supper clubs at least 45 weeks a year.

From Herald news services