Arte Johnson, a comic actor who won an Emmy for playing a diverse troupe of characters on the groundbreaking comedy show “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” died Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 90.
His death was announced by a spokesman, Harlan Boll, who said Mr. Johnson had bladder and prostate cancer.
Mr. Johnson was largely unknown until he became part of a cast that included Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Ruth Buzzi and Alan Sues on “Laugh-In.”
Mr. Johnson was a one-man ensemble, delivering lines that might otherwise fall flat in more accents than a United Nations ambassadors meeting. His characters included Tyrone Horneigh, a lascivious old man who accosted a woman played by Ms. Buzzi with amorous one-liners; Rosmenko, a Russian with tortured syntax; and Rabbi Shankar, a blissed-out guru.
But his most popular character was probably Wolfgang Busch, a helmeted German soldier (named after his brother-in-law) who would peer through bushes at the end of a sketch before slowly uttering, “Very interesting.”