Marty Ingels, an actor and comic whose off-screen antics were long deemed outrageous even by Hollywood’s lofty standards, died on Wednesday in Tarzana, Calif. He was 79.
His death, from complications of a stroke, was announced by his wife, the actress Shirley Jones. In a statement, she said, “He often drove me crazy, but there’s not a day I won’t miss him and love him to my core.”
The precise ways in which Mr. Ingels deranged Ms. Jones, who was known for her demure, Middle American screen persona, can be gleaned from his activities over many decades. Onscreen, the sandpaper-voiced Mr. Ingels was best known for his role in the short-lived sitcom “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster,” broadcast on ABC in the 1962-63 season. Mr. Ingels (as Fenster) starred opposite John Astin (as Dickens), as one of a pair of jovial carpenters.
Off screen, Mr. Ingels — who began his professional life as a talking peanut and was later a booker of celebrities on television commercials, a frequent TV guest star and a voice-over artist whose credits include Pac-Man in the animated series of the 1980s — was by all accounts highly voluble, genially combustible, energetically litigious and unmistakably larger than life.
There was the time, for instance, that Ms. Jones arrived home to find Mr. Ingels dancing on the lawn with her Oscar — awarded in 1961 for her role opposite Burt Lancaster in “Elmer Gantry” — accompanied by a hired mariachi band.
There was the time Mr. Ingels moved into a bank to live.
There were the various times he appeared in court, for Mr. Ingels always seemed to be suing someone, and someone always seemed to be suing him, in actions entailing, most notably, a curious incident involving the actress June Allyson and adult diapers.
There was the time that he tried to walk the red carpet at the Emmys accompanied by a life-size cardboard cutout of Ms. Jones, who was then out of the country. (Denied admission, the two-dimensional Ms. Jones was consigned to a closet for the duration of the ceremony.)
There were also darker times, as when Mr. Ingels, then an up-and-coming comic, had a paralyzing anxiety attack while performing on “The Tonight Show,” more or less ending his standup career.
There were the struggles with panic, agoraphobia and self-doubt that might well have had him “living at the Betty Ford Clinic in the Jewish and Depressed Room,” as Mr. Ingels said waggishly in a 2012 interview with Kliph Nesteroff for the website Classic Television Showbiz.
“I always say creativity comes out of pain,” Mr. Ingels said in the same interview. “Shirley doesn’t believe that because she has had no pain. No anxiety. I live with it. It’s my life. My dream is for my wife, Shirley, to have an anxiety attack and pass out!”
Martin Ingerman was born on March 9, 1936, in Brooklyn. After graduating from Forest Hills High School in Queens, he briefly attended Queens College — his parents wanted him to be a dentist — before leaving to pursue a string of jobs.
One had Mr. Ingels, dressed as an immense nut, handing out Planters peanuts in Times Square. But he fell victim to his own volubility, for while a talking peanut is one thing, a prolix peanut is quite another, and he and Planters soon parted ways.
Mr. Ingels later joined the Army, where his mobile face was spotted by a talent scout for the TV quiz show “Name That Tune.” Appearing on the show, he won several thousand dollars and became known for his humorous repartee. With his winnings, he studied at the Pasadena Playhouse, but he learned immediately that the legitimate stage was not for him.
“They put me in a Greek chorus as a spear carrier,” Mr. Ingels told The Buffalo Courier in 1962. “When I stepped forth and spoke my one serious line, the audience broke up.”
After small parts on “The Phil Silvers Show,” “The Aquanauts,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and other programs, Mr. Ingels landed “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster.” Though the show drew critical praise, the network canceled it after 32 episodes.
His other television roles include guest spots on “The Addams Family,” on which Mr. Astin starred as Gomez; “The Phyllis Diller Show”; “Murder, She Wrote”; and “CSI.” On film, Mr. Ingels appeared in “Wild and Wonderful” (1964), starring Tony Curtis, and “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” (1969), starring Ian McShane.
In the 1970s he founded Ingels Inc., a Hollywood agency that matched celebrities like Cary Grant and John Wayne with advertisers.
Mr. Ingels’s first marriage ended in divorce. Besides Ms. Jones, whom he married in 1977, his survivors include three stepsons, Shaun, Patrick and Ryan Cassidy, from her marriage to the actor Jack Cassidy; and 12 grandchildren.
Mr. Ingels was a longtime resident of Encino, Calif., though in the early 21st century, while between homes, he lived for a time in a defunct branch of the Federal City Bank in Los Angeles. He had originally rented storage space in the building for his abundant belongings but wound up spending so much time there that he installed a couch, a refrigerator, a microwave and, eventually, himself. Every so often, a would-be customer knocked on the door.
“I’m thinking of putting a sign out in front,” Mr. Ingels told USA Today at the time. “Deposits only.”
With Mickey Herskowitz, he and Ms. Jones wrote a memoir, “Shirley & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story,” published in 1990.
In 1993, Mr. Ingels agreed to perform 120 hours of community service. The agreement settled a suit by Ms. Allyson, a former client, whom Mr. Ingels had accused of failing to pay him his commission after he placed her in a commercial for the Depend brand of adult diapers.
Ms. Allyson, who denied owing the money, contended that in seeking it, Mr. Ingels had harassed her by telephoning 138 times in the space of eight hours.
From even this adversity, Mr. Ingels made comic hay. He fulfilled his community service by working in a Los Angeles-area nursing home, where he entertained the residents. Extending an olive branch, he invited Ms. Allyson to join him there.
“It would be the perfect truce,” Mr. Ingels told United Press International in 1993. “And what better thing for Depends?”
