Barbara Rickles, the widow of famed comedian Don Rickles, died Sunday on what would have been the couple’s 56th wedding anniversary. She was 84.
Rickles died at her home in Century City of complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, publicist Paul Shefrin told The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband died in April 2017 of kidney failure at age 90.
Born Barbara Sklar and raised in Philadelphia, she first met the insult comedian when she was working as a secretary for his agent, and they married in 1965. She and Don often vacationed with comic Bob Newhart and his wife, Ginnie.
In his 2007 memoir, Rickles’ Book, he called her “the world’s best sport. I say that because even though she quickly became a character in my routines, she never complained.
“Barbara didn’t blink when I told audiences in New York, Miami and Las Vegas about me swinging from the chandelier during our wedding night. I made up all kinds of crazy nonsense. I was Tarzan, she was Jane. I’d say, ‘When we get home from a dinner party, she takes off her diamond ring, stands by the window and signals ships — and there’s no water in sight.’ I’d talk about her like she was a shopaholic. If I could get a laugh out of painting her as a spoiled princess, I did it.
“Of course, none of that was true.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter