Henry Gibson

Henry Gibson has died. That's a surprise. A bigger surprise is finding out in his obit he took his name as a pun on Henrik Ibsen. Wow, a 40-year+ joke no one got.

Gibson, short, meek-looking, was best known as the resident poet on the #1 hit show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Late in life, he found new fame as a recurring character on Boston Legal, the troubled Judge Clark Brown. But outside those years, he kept working, appearing in countless TV shows and a quite a few movies, including memorable turns as fairly tough guys in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye and Nashville.