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Wild audition stories are a dime a dozen in Hollywood, but McLean Stevenson's "M*A*S*H" casting is one of the stranger bits of classic sitcom mythology. According to casting director Eddie Foy III (per MeTV), the actor who would go on to play beloved buffoon Colonel Henry Blake for three seasons of the long-running series first earned the part in an especially roundabout way. The casting department didn't simply have Stevenson audition but instead put him in an entirely different TV movie to get him on executive producer Gene Reynolds' radar.

"I remember McLean Stevenson, I got McLean to do [the series]," Foy recalled in an interview with the Archive of American Television. "In fact," he continued, "we snuck him in on a picture called 'Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones,' where he played an eccentric minister, and we showed it to Gene Reynolds. He said, 'I love the guy.

Veteran comic character actress Susan Tolsky, best known for playing Biddie Cloom on the ABC comedy Western series Here Come the Brides, has died. She was 79. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tolsky passed away on Sunday, October 9, at her Toluca Lake home in Los Angeles, California, as confirmed by her sister. A funeral service was held Monday, October 31, at the Angeleno Valley Mortuary in North Hollywood. Born on April 6, 1943, in Houston, Texas, Tolsky became interested in comedy and acting from a young age. She also had a fascination with the field of medicine and enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin to major in nursing. However, she quit during her second year of pre-medical and transferred to the Department of Drama, switching her major to theater and English. In her senior year, she was scouted by casting director Eddie Foy III, who advised her to try acting in Hollywood,...

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Susan Tolsky, the comic character actress who sparkled as the winsome Biddie Cloom on Here Come the Brides and as the shy secretary Bernadette Van Gilder on Madame’s Place, has died. She was 79.

Tolsky died Oct. 9 of natural causes at her Toluca Lake home in Los Angeles, her sister, Noel Foreman, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Tolsky also portrayed the secretary of a high school football coach (Rock Hudson) bedding students in Roger Vadim’s Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971) and was a regular performer on The New Bill Cosby Show, a 1972-73 CBS variety program produced by Laugh-In legend George Schlatter.

Onscreen, she often wore big, round eyeglasses and used a voice she described in a 1969 TV Guide interview as “a chicken with a hernia.”

“I realized a long time ago that men don’t look at me and pant and go crazy,...

The special “In Memoriam” segment on the 2019 Emmy Awards ceremony will be especially tearful this year. Beloved television legends Tim Conway, Doris Day, Bob Einstein, Valerie Harper, Katherine Helmond, Peggy Lipton, Penny Marshall, Luke Perry, John Singleton and Rip Torn will certainly be just a few people honored with in a musical tribute performed by pop star Halsey.

Let’s take a look back at these TV icons as well as over 60 others who have died since mid-September last year. Many will be included in the memoriam for the live Emmys ceremony for Fox on September 22.

SEECelebrity Deaths 2019: In Memoriam Gallery

Tim Conway died on May 14 at age 85. The comedy legend won six Emmy Awards during his lengthy career, including four for “The Carol Burnett Show,” one for “Coach” and one for “30 Rock.” He was inducted into the TV Academy Hall of Fame in 2002.

Legendary singer and actress...

Casting director Eddie Foy III, whose credits include “Happy Days” and the Emmy Awards, died after a fall on Nov. 3, his publicist confirmed. He was 83.

Foy had been a casting director for more than 42 years. He worked with Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems, 20th Century Fox, and Dick Clark Productions. He served as director of casting for ABC and vice president of casting for NBC. Some of his credits include “Gidget,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Mork and Mindy,” “The Monkees,” “Happy Days,” the first two “Roots” installments, and the Emmy Awards.

He completed his career as a longstanding independent casting director and talent executive for the Jerry Lewis Mda Labor Day Telethon. Foy’s most recent honor was his unanimous selection by the Academy of Television Arts and Science, Archives Division, as the most influential casting director in TV the last 42 years and for...

Eddie Foy III, a casting director who worked on such classic series as Happy Days, Cheers, M*A*S*H and The Monkees, and was a third-generation member of the legendary Foy show business clan, died November 3 in a fall at his home in Denison, Ia. He was 83.

The son of actor Eddie Foy Jr., he grew up around celebrities in New York City and did some acting in films and TV before segueing to casting in the 1970s. His grandfather, Eddie Foy Sr., headed the famed family vaudeville act Eddie Foy and the Seven Little Foys, which included Eddie Foy Jr., who continued a successful acting career into adulthood.

The vaudeville family’s story was told in the 1955 movie The Seven Little Foys starring Bob Hope and James Cagney.

Eddie Foy III followed family tradition into acting – early credits included roles on 1950s-60s TV series like Highway Patrol...

Eddie Foy III, a veteran casting director for television who helped bring Barbara Eden to I Dream of Jeannie and Sally Field to Gidget, has died. He was 83.

Foy died Saturday at his home in Denison, Iowa, of injuries sustained in a fall, publicist Michael Saltzman announced.

Foy's father was actor Eddie Foy Jr., and his grandfather was Eddie Foy Sr. of the famed vaudeville act The Seven Little Foys. (His dad portrayed his granddad in the 1942 James Cagney classic Yankee Doodle Dandy.)

Foy spent more than four decades in casting, starting out at Screen Gems and 20th Century Fox....

Eddie Foy III, a veteran casting director for television who helped bring Barbara Eden to I Dream of Jeannie and Sally Field to Gidget, has died. He was 83.

Foy died Saturday at his home in Denison, Iowa, of injuries sustained in a fall, publicist Michael Saltzman announced.

Foy's father was actor Eddie Foy Jr., and his grandfather was Eddie Foy Sr. of the famed vaudeville act The Seven Little Foys. (His dad portrayed his granddad in the 1942 James Cagney classic Yankee Doodle Dandy.)

Foy spent more than four decades in casting, starting out at Screen Gems and 20th Century Fox....