Garry Shandling was practicing his comedy routine on classmates at Tucson’s Palo Verde High School in the mid-1960s.
Classmate Bob Jones remembers how Shandling would post himself at the same spot near the lunch crowd every morning. A handful of people would surround him as he told jokes.
Palo Verde was the only east side high school so they held two sessions, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The first lunch period was at 9 a.m. and “there’s Garry out there and he was always trying to draw a crowd,” said Jones, who graduated with Shandling in 1967.
“Some of us would sit around and look at this guy like he was a nut case,” Jones recalled Thursday, hours after news broke that Shandling had died of an apparent heart attack at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 66.
Shandling’s high school comedy schtick turned into a 30-year career that included long stretches on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and two cable shows — “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” on Showtime from 1986 to 1990 and “The Larry Sanders Show” on HBO from 1992 to 1998.
“When I saw him (on TV) I was flabbergasted,” Jones, who worked in Tucson radio for 30 years, said of watching Shandling go from class clown to Hollywood star. None of Shandling’s classmates would have guessed that the quiet kid in class who would occasionally disrupt the teacher with a joke would end up as one of the country’s top comedians.
Garry Shandling was born on Nov. 29, 1949, in Chicago but grew up in Tucson. After graduating from Palo Verde High School, he attended the University of Arizona, where he earned a marketing degree. He also took graduate courses in creative writing before striking out for Los Angeles in 1973 to work in advertising.
That career was short-lived after Shandling sold a script to the popular NBC sitcom “Sanford and Son.” He also wrote for “Welcome Back, Kotter.”
Shandling began his standup career in the late 1970s at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. His act revolved around his persona as an angst-ridden, grimacing and often confused man always on the verge of a losing it. Within a couple years, a scout for “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” booked Shandling as a guest.
The appearance turned into a long relationship with the famous host; Shandling was a regular sub for Carson from 1981 to 1987; some even speculated that Shandling was a shoe-in to replace Carson when he left the show in 1992.
Shandling also was given a prime-time national stage from 2000 to 2004 as host of the Emmy Awards.
Shandling’s death shocked the comedy world.
Jamie Masada, owner the Laugh Factory comedy club, said he met with Shandling a few weeks ago and the comedian didn’t appear to have any health problems.
“He looked healthy as could be,” Masada said.
Kathy Griffin posted a photo on Twitter Sunday of her and Shandling with fellow comedian Bob Odenkirk. On Thursday, she retweeted the photo: “Sunday, my longtime friend Garry Shandling was here, making every1 laugh. I loved him. I’ll miss our talks the most.”
“Garry was a guiding voice of comedy,” said Odenkirk. “He set the standard and we’re all still trying to meet it.”
Filmmaker Judd Apatow declared, “Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing. It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. ... I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better.”
Comedian/actor Ricky Gervais on Thursday tweeted, “RIP the great Garry Shandling. Surely, one of the most influential comedians of a generation.”
