Saturday, May 23, 2026

Comic, Actor Louie Anderson, 68, Dies After Battle with Cancer, Won Emmy Award for “Baskets”

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Comedy great and Emmy Award winning actor Louie Anderson has died in Las Vegas at age 68. He had cancer.

Anderson was a comedy staple on TV and the stand up circuit through the 80s. He was very popular on TV but also had a kind of cult following. But his biggest success didn’t happen until recently, in 2016, when he took the role of Christine, the matriarch of an eccentric family, in FX’s tragicom, “Baskets.”

Anderson played the role straight, so to speak, with such dignity and comportment that he won an Emmy Award and a Critics Choice Award. He garnered rave reviews after four decades of making people laugh and cry with intelligence and wit.

 

 

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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