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Associated Press

Jay Thomas, a radio talk show host and actor with recurring roles on the sitcoms Murphy Brown and Cheers, has died, his publicist said. Thomas was 69.
He was “one of the funniest and kindest men I have had the honour to call both client and friend for 25 years plus,” publicist Tom Estey said in a statement Thursday. He did not provide further details.
Thomas was fighting cancer, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.
Thomas’ best-known roles were as Eddie LeBec, the former-hockey-player husband of barmaid Carla on Cheers, and tabloid-talk-show host Jerry Gold on Murphy Brown, for which he won two Emmys.
Diane English, creator of Murphy Brown, said in a Twitter post that she was heartbroken to hear of his death and called him “gifted.”
“I would have loved to write another role for him. RIP Jay,” she tweeted.
Jay Thomas tells ‘the greatest talk show story of all time’


Thomas, who in recent years hosted a SiriusXM Radio talk show, was a reliably worthy guest. His annual Christmastime appearance on Late Show with David Letterman became a tradition that included a contest to knock a meatball off the top of a Christmas tree erected onstage.
The custom began one night in 1998 when New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde was a guest. He and Letterman picked up footballs and began tossing them at the oddly decorated tree, aiming for the meatball.
Impatiently watching their failures from the wings was Thomas, former quarterback at tiny Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. He ran on stage, picked up a football and, in one throw, accomplished what the NFL star couldn’t in several, nailing the meatball. Thomas was invited back annually for the duration of Letterman’s Late Show run to try to repeat his feat.
2014 Holiday Football Challenge


With each appearance he also told the same tale of his time as a radio DJ in the South when he and a friend gave a ride to Clayton Moore, star of TV’s Lone Ranger. Letterman hailed it as the “the greatest talk-show story of all time.”
Thomas called his annual Late Show ritual “the craziest thing I have ever been a part of” in an interview a few years ago with The Associated Press.
Born John Thomas Terrell in Kermit, Texas, he began his radio career as a sports announcer for high school football and college basketball while attending schools including Gulf Coast College and Jacksonville University to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees, according to his online biography.
He worked as a radio disc jockey and station program manager in so many Southern cities that “I had a career like a Piedmont Airlines schedule,” he joked in an AP interview.
His radio experience led to stand-up comedy gigs and eventually acting on stage and TV. In 1979, he was cast on the hit sitcom Mork & Mindy in the supporting role of delicatessen owner Remo DaVinci.
He starred for three seasons in the sitcom Love & War as a sports writer romancing the woman who owned his favourite sports bar. Thomas also made many guest appearances on comedy and drama series, most recently on Ray Donovan, NCIS: New Orleans and Bones.
His films roles include Mr Holland’s Opus and the second and third Santa Clause films.
Thomas’ survivors include his wife, Sally, and sons J.T. Harding and Jacob and Samuel Thomas.


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Obituaries

Actor and radio host Jay Thomas, teller of ‘greatest talk show story of all time’, dies at 69

Jay Thomas on April 8, 2014, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The veteran actor and radio personality died at 69 on Thursday at home in Santa Barbara, California. Photo: Sipa USA

LAB02:PREMIERE:LOS ANGELES,CALIFORNIA,18JAN96- The cast of the new film "Mr. Holland's Opus" pose together at the film's premiere January 18. Shown (L-R) Jay Thomas, Glenne Headly and Richard Dreyfuss. The film is about a music teacher's aspirations to compose an opus that must take a back seat to the needs of his students and deaf son. Dreyfuss portrays "Mr. Holland." fsp/Photo by Rose Prouser REUTERS

FILE - In this July 9, 1992 file photo, actor Jay Thomas, who stars in CBS television's "Love and War" poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. A publicist for Thomas says the actor and radio host died. He was 69. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

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