02:25 AM EDT 10/15/2009
Ed McMahon
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Ed McMahon Dies at 86
Originally posted 06/23/2009 08:30AM
He was TV's most famous second banana, sitting alongside Johnny Carson during what was arguably the golden age of NBC's Tonight Show, from 1962 to 1992, welcoming a nightly national audience with his opening cry of "Heeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny."
But now that voice is stilled. NBC News announced Tuesday morning that Ed McMahon, 86, had died after a battle with cancer. He had been hospitalized for pneumonia in January.
Permalink | Filed Under: Ed McMahon
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Hospitalized Ed McMahon Is Facing Illness with Courage
Originally posted 03/02/2009 02:00PM
Family and friends of Ed McMahon are looking forward to celebrating the affable pitchman's 86th birthday Friday – even as he is battling pneumonia and other illnesses in the ICU of a Los Angeles hospital, the family's spokesman tells PEOPLE.
"I'm not a medical doctor, I'm a spin doctor, so I'm not able to give a diagnosis here," says McMahon publicist Howard Bragman. "What I can tell you is this: I've seen many people come up to Ed over the years and say, 'You were a Marine.' Ed would look them in the eye and say, 'I am a Marine.' "
McMahon, who was a Marine fighter pilot in the Korean War, has been hospitalized for the past month. Members of his family are at the ICU at his bedside around the clock.
Permalink | Filed Under: Ed McMahon
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Ed McMahon Hospitalized with Pneumonia
Originally posted 02/27/2009 02:30PM
Ed McMahon has been in a Los Angeles-area hospital nearly a month under treatment for pneumonia and other medical issues, and is currently in ICU, a spokesman for the veteran TV fixture confirms to PEOPLE.
"We appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers," said McMahon's representative and friend, Howard Bragman. The spokesman was responding to a TMZ report about McMahon's "serious" medical condition.
Best known for his years next to Johnny Carson's desk on NBC's Tonight Show – as well as the emcee of Star Search – Mahon, 85, was in the news last year for his financial problems that resulted in the near-foreclosure of his Beverly Hills-area home.
Permalink | Filed Under: Ed McMahon
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Ed McMahon Cashing In With Super Bowl Ad
Originally posted 01/30/2009 07:45PM
During his recent money woes, TV pitchman Ed McMahon raised badly needed cash by selling stuff around the house.
"I had a lot of old wedding bands," McMahon, 85, tells PEOPLE. "Let's say they had 'mixed' memories associated with them."
Now, he's taking it one step further by appearing in Super Bowl commercials for a service he says he actually used – Cash4Gold, which buys jewelry and other precious metal objects.
According to the company's Web site, Cash4Gold customers mail their "unwanted gold, silver and platinum" off in pre-paid insured envelopes and "sit back and relax" while their check is mailed.
Look for a light touch in the ads. McMahon says his neck injury and money problems have not extinguished the comedian in him.
Permalink | Filed Under: Super Bowl, Ed McMahon
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Hospital Disputes Ed McMahon's Lawsuit Claims
Originally posted 08/22/2008 05:00PM
The soap opera that is Ed McMahon's life continued this week, with attorneys for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles requesting that a court toss out many of the former Tonight Show sidekick's legal claims against it.
On Wednesday, the hospital's legal team filed papers declaring that McMahon failed to prove his allegations of fraud, battery, elder abuse and emotional distress, the Associated Press reports.
The facility's attorneys also seek to prevent the 85-year-old TV veteran from securing punitive damages.
Permalink | Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Ed McMahon
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Trump to the Rescue! He Buys Ed McMahon's Home
Originally posted 08/15/2008 09:20AM
Looks like financially beleaguered Ed McMahon will have a new landlord: Donald Trump.
The tycoon says he will save the veteran television personality's Beverly Hills mansion from foreclosure by buying it – and leasing it back to the octogenarian.
Trump, who does not know McMahon personally, said it "would be an honor" to help out the man who spent three decades as Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show. "When I was at the Wharton School of Business I'd watch him every night."
McMahon, 85, bought the six-bedroom house in January 1990. Down from a peak price of $7 million, the property was listed at a bargain $4.6 million last weekend, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Paperwork on the sale has not been completed, but McMahon was "very optimistic" the deal would go through, his spokesman told the Associated Press.
– Caris Davis
Permalink | Filed Under: Celeb Real Estate, Donald Trump, Ed McMahon
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Ed McMahon Goes Back to Work – with Jimmy Kimmel
Originally posted 07/25/2008 05:00PM
Ed McMahon, whose recent money woes have been a topic of national news coverage, has found employment.
Johnny Carson's longtime Tonight Show sidekick is exercising his pitchman pipes by delivering a series of comical commercials for Pontiac cars that will be aired starting Monday on ABC's late-night Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Associated Press reports.
"It felt very good to be out of the brace and working again," McMahon, 85, said Friday, referring to the brace he requires after undergoing a third neck operation. (He is suing over his injury.) "I spent my whole life doing commercials, so here I was back doing a commercial again. It was very comforting. Believe me."
Permalink | Filed Under: Ed McMahon, TV News, Jimmy Kimmel
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Ed McMahon Sues Hospital, Billionaire Over Broken Neck
Originally posted 07/18/2008 08:00PM
Ed McMahon filed suit Friday against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a billionaire homeowner over a broken neck the TV personality suffered when he fell at a dinner party.
McMahon, 85, a longtime product pitchman and Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show, says the injury has prevented him from working and has contributed to his financial crisis.
According to the L.A. Superior Court suit, McMahon tumbled on "unsafe entry stairs" at a March 2007 dinner party at the home of Robert Day, the founder of the Los Angeles investment management firm TCW Group.
Permalink | Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon Explains 'Embarrassing' Money Woes
Originally posted 06/06/2008 08:30AM
Speaking publicly for the first time since news broke that he might lose his Beverly Hills home, Ed McMahon appeared on CNN's Larry King Live Thursday night, explaining, "I want to speak for the million people [in America] who now have foreclosure signs on their houses."
In an appearance that, at times, produced more questions than answers – such as why McMahon, 85, was sporting a neck brace or how, after a decades-long TV career, he could be financially squeezed – McMahon repeatedly called himself "optimistic."
"If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens," he said. "A couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that." Added his current wife, Pam McMahon: "Because you're a celebrity, people think you have more than you have."
Permalink | Filed Under: Celeb Real Estate, Ed McMahon
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Ed McMahon's Beverly Hills Home in Foreclosure
Originally posted 06/04/2008 05:15PM
Ed McMahon – familiar for decades as Johnny Carson's Tonight Show sidekick, Star Search host and pitchman for the American Family Publishers' sweepstakes – is facing a crisis currently familiar to a lot of property owners: possible foreclosure of his home.
McMahon, 85, reportedly is approximately $644,00 in arrears on his six-bedroom, five-bathroom home within an exclusive gated community in Beverly Hills called The Summit – the same enclave where Britney Spears lives.
On the market for two years, McMahon's residence carries an asking price of $5.75 million – and a $4.8 million mortgage, according to a Feb. 28 default notice filed with the Los Angeles County Recorder's Office by a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp., reports the Wall Street Journal.
Permalink | Filed Under: Celeb Real Estate, Ed McMahon
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