Tim Conway, one of the most prominent actors during the golden age of television, is suffering from dementia.
People reports that Conway’s daughter is being asked to be appointed as conservator to her 84 year-old father and take official charge of his medical treatments, as he’s now unable to “properly provide for his personal needs for physical health, food, and clothing” and is “almost entirely unresponsive.” This comes after Conway’s current wife plans to move him out of his nursing facility to a new location that apparently won’t give him access to “registered nurses at all times and his 24-hour caregiver and speech therapist.” Conway is perhaps best known for his work in the sitcom McHale’s Navy — starring alongside Ernest Borgnine, who he later reunited with on SpongeBob SquarePants to voice Mermaid Man and Bernacle Boy, respectively — and the variety series The Carol Burnett Show. More recently, he received an Emmy for his guest appearance in the second season of 30 Rock, playing a Hollywood actor of yesteryear with … some bizarre stories.
Before making his mark in Hollywood, Conway surprisingly had no experience in the industry.
“I had no professional training. I had a sense of humor and had been in front of a microphone,” Conway said on an episode of The Interviews: An Oral History of Television in 2004.
He starred on McHale’s Navy, co-starred on the 1970s comedy The Carol Burnett Show, acted as the voice of Barnacle Boy on Spongebob Squarepants and even made a special appearance on the second season of 30 Rock, which he received an Emmy for.
(Excerpts) Read more in: Vulture & People