Web posted on: Thursday, May 28, 1998 2:32:17 PM

ENCINO, California (CNN) -- Actor-comedian Phil Hartman's death ended a brilliant comedy career that spanned from television to the silver screen.

Hartman was known for his intensely comical style, reflected most recently in his role as the egotistical, vain anchor Bill McNeal on "News Radio."

He has also starred in numerous films, including "Greedy," "House Guest," "Blind Date," "Three Amigos," "Coneheads," "Fletch Lives," "Quick Change," "So I Married an Axe Murderer," "Sgt. Bilko" and "Jingle All the Way."

Like Dan Aykroyd, the late John Candy and numerous other comics, Hartman was born in Canada. Unlike the others, he grew up in the United States -- Connecticut and Southern California. One of eight children, he once described himself as the class clown of his high school.

"I'm from a large family; I'm the middle child," he once said. "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere.

"Even at Westchester High in West L.A., I was class clown, because I could do John Wayne, Jack Benny, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and entertain my friends on the senior lawn," he remembered in a 1995 Associated Press interview. "But I never seriously considered it as a career choice."

He would later go on to study graphic design at California State University at Northridge, a Los Angeles suburb.

Hartman got his break when he joined the acclaimed comedy group "The Groundlings" in 1975. In 1978 he began working with fellow Groundlings performer Paul Reubens, now known as Pee-Wee Herman, which later led to Hartman's co-writing credit on the feature film "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure."

His success in screenwriting was not matched in the acting department, at least not early in his career.

"As an actor, I felt I couldn't compete," he once said. "I wasn't as cute as the leading man. I wasn't as brilliant as Robin Williams. The one thing I could do was voices and impersonations and weird characters, and there was really no call for that. Except on 'Saturday Night Live.'"

1992 cast of NBC's "Saturday Night Live"

Hartman eventually won a part on "Saturday Night Live" in the 1986-1987 season. He stayed with the show for seven years. He was best-known on the show for his impersonations of leading political and celebrity figures, including Frank Sinatra, Bill Clinton, Jack Nicholson, Phil Donahue, Ronald Reagan and Sen. Ted Kennedy.

"I recently made a list of all the characters and voices I've done. It came to 99," Hartman told an interviewer in late 1992.

But Hartman found working on "SNL" to be too stressful. He told People magazine in a 1995 interview, "The rejection and backstabbing could be painful, but the hardest thing was competing against your friends for air time.

"It was literally a situation where you felt the most unbridled glory and the most excruciating emotional agony. What's the line -- laugh all your laughter, cry all your tears? And revel in the glory of it all," Hartman said.

"SNL" also kept Hartman away from his California home.

"I like New York, but I love California," he once said. "I'm a yachtsman, and I've got three boats just sitting in Marina Del Rey begging me to come back and make sense of all the maintenance fees I've been paying."

Hartman poses with cutout of "Jingle All the Way" costar Arnold Schwarzenegger

Hartman eventually found the character that he would become known for as an actor: the weasel villain. He capitalized on this role in movies like "Jingle All The Way" and on the TV series "The Simpsons," as the voices of attorney Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure.

"I just want to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see," he said.

"Newsradio" came next in 1995, but he had said he was considering leaving the show.

"The first few years of doing Bill McNeal still felt fresh to me, because I was expanding and learning about the character. But after three years, we've pretty much explored the depth of this guy," he says.

In his spare time, Hartman said he enjoyed spending time with his family.

Hartman was considered an expert sailor and scuba diver. He also surfed with actor pals Tom Hanks and Woody Harrelson.

But his true love remained with comedy.

"I come from that Jonathan Winters sensibility, where I kind of 'trip' - I just go with it," he once said. "It's transcendental, because I'll go into a sketch and come out of it and it's like waking up from a dream. The more I get that feeling, the happier I am."

The shooting, apparently at the hands of his wife, has left Hartman's friends seeking answers.

"Whenever I would see them they were always a happy couple," actor Steve Guttenberg, who met Hartman in "The Groundlings," said. "They always had the appearance of being real well balanced."

Message board:

• Share your memories of Phil Hartman

Related stories:

• 'Twas the Night Before Christmas ... - December 24, 1997
• Fellow comics, friends mourn Farley - December 18, 1997
• Vagabond 'NewsRadio' hopes Tuesday spot will be its charm - May 14, 1997
• 'Jingle All the Way': A kinder, funnier Arnold - November 21, 1996
• Comedians pull rank in 'Sgt. Bilko' - March 29, 1996

Related sites:

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• National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
  • Phil Hartman biography
  • "NewsRadio"
  • "Saturday Night Live"
• The Simpsons - Fox Television
• Phil Hartman: Man of 1,000 faces and voices
• The Phil Hartman Show (currently called NewsRadio)
• Phil Hartman - Beatrice's Web Guide
• Voice work of Phil Hartman

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