In Memoriam

David Groh

As a big fan of "Rhoda" and its precursor "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" this is sad news indeed. AP reports:

David Groh, the handsome, hardworking character actor who was best known to television viewers as the easygoing man Rhoda Morgenstern married and divorced during the run of Valerie Harper's hit 1970s sitcom "Rhoda," has died. He was 68.

Groh died Tuesday of kidney cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his sister-in-law Catherine Mullally told The Associated Press on Thursday. Groh's wife, Kristin Andersen, was by his side.

Divorce was not a subject generally addressed on television in the 1970s, and when Groh's character, Joe Gerard, and Harper's Rhoda Morgenstern split up during the show's third season, viewers were stunned. Their marriage had resulted in one of the show's highest-rated episodes, and when they split people sent them condolence cards.

The show had begun in 1974 as a spinoff from television's hugely popular "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which was set in Minneapolis. "Rhoda" had Harper's character moving back home to New York City, where she met and married Joe.

Groh's stunning good looks and real-life good nature were key to helping him win the part of her TV husband, Harper said Thursday.

"We looked all over and he finally came on the scene," Harper told the AP. "I read every cute guy of a certain age in Hollywood and he was the one. ... I enjoyed very much working with him. He was a lovely, lovely guy."

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Steve Gerber

The Los Angeles Times reports on the death of Steve Gerber, the comic-book writer who created, among other characters, Howard the Duck.

Steve Gerber, a cutting-edge comic-book writer and creator best-known for Howard the Duck, the ill-tempered, cigar-smoking Marvel Comics character whose adventures satirized American life in the 1970s, has died. He was 60.

Gerber, who also wrote for such animated TV series as "G.I. Joe" and "Dungeons & Dragons" and was known in the comic-book industry as a strong advocate of creators' rights, died Sunday at a Las Vegas hospital from complications of pulmonary fibrosis, said Mary Skrenes, a longtime friend and writing collaborator.

"He had an unusual way of writing human stories, whether it be a supernatural, a superhero, an occult or a semi-realistic world," said Skrenes, who co-wrote the 1970s Marvel superhero comic book "Omega the Unknown" with Gerber.

"So many people could identify with his characters, and his characters spoke the truth about the real world in a comic-book world he created," she said.

Observed Mark Evanier, another writer friend who collaborated with Gerber on TV cartoon series and comic books: "He was a distinctive, fresh voice in the '70s, telling personal stories in a medium that was not always known for that."

Gerber, who joined Marvel Comics as an associate editor and writer in 1972, began by writing stories for "Daredevil," "Sub-Mariner" and other superhero titles and became known for injecting absurdist humor and social satire into them.

Gerber later recalled that he was in his Brooklyn apartment working on a plot one night when he got the idea for Howard the Duck, whom he described as "the living embodiment of all that is querulous, opinionated and uncool."

The iconoclastic duck from another world, originally drawn by artist Val Mayerik, made his first appearance in 1973 as a one-shot character in "The Man-Thing" feature in Marvel's "Adventure Into Fear" comic book.

Immediately popular with readers, Howard returned to make guest appearances and became his own comic book title in January 1976.

The all-too-human Howard -- "Trapped in a World He Never Made!" as the cover catch-phrase declared -- was prone to depression, struggled to pay the rent and had a sexy human companion, Beverly Switzler -- "Toots" to Howard.

Gay rights activists liked Howard the Duck because it "mixed absurd elements with social relevance, including mockery of anti-gay activists like Anita Bryant."