Louie Anderson, longtime comic, game show host and actor who won an Emmy for his role as Christine Baskets in the FX series “Baskets,” has died at age 68.
He died in Las Vegas after undergoing treatment for his cancer, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. In a statement to The Post, his publicist said he “passed away peacefully” Friday morning.
Perhaps best known for his brilliant, subversive turn in the 1988 comedy “Coming to America,” he scored the role as the sole white person in the groundbreaking film. Anderson chalked it up to his nice-guy Midwestern roots.
His role as Maurice — the seemingly mild-mannered McDowell’s clerk — produced one of the most iconic soliloquies in comedy: “Hey, I started out mopping the floor just like you guys. But now … now I’m washing lettuce,” said Anderson’s sad-sack Maurice with withering underdog determination. “Soon I’ll be on fries; then the grill. In a year or two, I’ll make assistant manager, and that’s when the big bucks start rolling in.”
A statement from FX hailed the comic’s “bravura performance” in “Baskets.”
“We are so deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend Louie Anderson,” the network shared. “For four wonderful seasons, Louie graced us and fans of ‘Baskets’ with a bravura performance as Christine Baskets, for which he deservedly was recognized by his peers with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. It was a risky role for him and he embraced it with a fearlessness and joy that demonstrated his brilliance as an artist. He truly cared about his craft and was a true professional in every sense.
“Our hearts go out to his loved ones and his ‘Baskets’ family – Zach Galifianakis, Jonathan Krisel, Martha Kelly and all the cast and crew,” the statement continued. “He will be missed by us all but never forgotten and [will] always bring a smile to our faces.”
New York-based comic Jim Gaffigan called Anderson “brilliant” in a tweet and told The Post that Anderson “really did it all” through stand-up, writing, game show-hosting (“Family Feud”), animation and acting.
“Louie had a Showtime special that I must have watched 200 times,” Gaffigan said via email. “His influence on me is not measurable. Most importantly, he was always kind and encouraging. He didn’t like mean.”
More tributes poured in on social media, with actor D.L. Hughley calling him “one of my all time favorites.” Michael McKean weighed in on “Baskets,” calling it “such a phenomenal ‘second act’” for Anderson, adding, “I wish he’d gotten a third.”
Gilbert Gottfried tweeted a touching photo with Anderson and fellow comic Bob Saget, who died at age 65 earlier this month. “This photo is very sad now,” Gottfried wrote. “RIP Bob Saget and RIP Louie Anderson. Both good friends that will be missed.”
In 2017, after winning an Emmy for playing Galifianakis’ character’s mother, Anderson told The Post that he hoped to do more television, but different.
“I would like to do a drama show and I’d like to play a man again,” he said. “I don’t know if [this role] will translate to people as me being an actor. I do have a lot of people who want to meet with me — a lot of times because they love the character. I’m grateful. I think people think, ‘Oh, he’s such a good actor,’ which makes me believe I was worse than I thought, that I must’ve been quite shallow [before]. But I don’t hold that against anybody.”
Comedian Helen Hong, an actress on “The Unicorn” and “Never Have I Ever,” told The Post she was introduced to Anderson through a comedy producer, and the veteran comedian took her under his wing, inviting her to open for him multiple times during his Las Vegas residency.
“Louie was just so generous to younger comedians. He told me to call him with joke ideas,” she said, noting how rare it is for an established comedian to nurture rising talent. “To get that from a comedy legend is unbelievable.”
Hong — who called Anderson “a true stand-up comedian to the end” — recalled him still knocking ’em dead during his stand-up act in Vegas, studded with kids and seniors. “Louie would do a squeaky clean set. And murdered. People were smacking the tables. He was so gifted,” said Hong, noting his gift of transcending age.
“As a comedian, you have to pick a lane – either you’re a dirty or clean comedian … I had never seen anything like that,” she added.
He also gave life advice to the young comic: “He talked about his hard childhood. He said, ‘Talk about everything that happened to you — that’s where you find healing and the best jokes.’”
At the invitation of talk show legend Johnny Carson, Anderson made his national television debut on “The Tonight Show” in 1984. He later had appearances on late-night shows hosted by likes of Jay Leno, David Letterman and Craig Ferguson.
His career spawned guest roles not only in sitcoms — including “Grace Under Fire” — but also in dramas, like “Touched by an Angel” and “Chicago Hope.” In 1995, he also kicked off a long-running Saturday morning children’s show, the Emmy-nominated animated series “Life With Louie,” about his childhood.
In the late ’80s, Anderson — a Saint Paul, Minnesota, native — was at the swanky Beverly Hills celeb-magnet restaurant the Ivy, where Eddie Murphy and his entourage happened to be dining. Anderson footed the entire bill for Murphy and his group, with explicit instructions not to tell the waiter it was him until Anderson had left: “I’m not doing it to be a big shot. I’m doing it because I’m from the Midwest and that’s how we would do,” Anderson recounted on the radio show “Sway in the Morning” in 2017.
The morning after splurging on dinner, Anderson received a call from Murphy. He not only offered thanks for the gesture — “Nobody ever bought me anything,” Murphy told Anderson — but also said he wanted to cast Anderson in “a little movie called ‘Coming to America.’”
Marveling at comedic karma, Anderson said, “That’s life, isn’t it? It was the best $660 I ever spent.”
“That’s a big movie in my life, first big job,” Anderson told Sway of his breakout role.
Anderson also said he gave some unsolicited advice to Murphy in the 1980s, when both were on the stand-up circuit in LA: “I’d always go, ‘Eddie, you’re too dirty onstage – be clean. You can be funnier being clean, you’ll just do twice the business,’” Anderson told Sway. “And he’d just look at me.”
But the “Raw” comedian must have listened to Anderson: 1988’s “Coming to America” smoothed his edges, and it became the highest-earning film that year for the studio and the second-highest-grossing film at the US box office.
Anderson was especially grateful for his late-career, award-winning part on “Baskets,” which was a life-changing one for him. “At 62, I got the role of a lifetime,” he told Variety in 2016.
He based the character on his own mother, who died in 1990 and whom he credits for his success.
“Christine is me being able to draw from my mom,” he told The Post. “There’s joy for me in … giving a chance for my mother to shine in the spotlight … For all she did for me, to pay it back and step aside and let her shine through loud and clear. Anybody who knew my mom can’t get over how many things I’m using from her.”
In 2018, Anderson weighed in on his love of comedy. “I love the anatomy of a joke,” he told The Post in another interview. “It’s like archaeology — if you dig too deep, you miss it, and if you don’t dig deep enough, you won’t find it. It’s a kind of crazy thing.”
Anderson also wrote several books, including a 2018 memoir, “Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother, But You Can Read Them Too,” as well as “Dear Dad: Letters From an Adult Child,” a roundup of both touching and outrageous letters written from Anderson to his late father. He also published the 1994 self-help book “Goodbye Jumbo … Hello Cruel World” and a 2002 memoir, “The F Word: How To Survive Your Family.”
Anderson, who was one of 11 children, is survived by his two sisters, Lisa and Shanna Anderson, according to his publicist.
