Comedian Bob Saget dies at 65; Temple grad started his career in Philly

Stand-up comedian and actor Bob Saget, 65, who got his start while growing up in Philadelphia, was found dead Sunday at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Orlando, Fla.

Police said there was no sign of foul play or drug use.

TMZ was first to report the death of the entertainer best known for his role as Danny Tanner on the 1990s sitcom Full House. Saget had recently launched a stand-up tour with the first two dates in Florida. He performed in Ponte Vedra Beach on Saturday night, and after his set tweeted, “Loved tonight’s show. Appreciative audience.”

Mr. Saget, a Temple University graduate who was born in Mount Airy and graduated from Abington High School, told The Inquirer in 2006 that his stand-up career began when he was 17.

“I had made a movie called Beach Blanket Blintzes,” he said. “Showed it on Cedar Road in Elkins Park at the junior high school. There were 300 parents there. It was the worst movie ever made, but I got up and did stand-up to introduce it.”

About the same time, he befriended Stephen Starr, then a nightclub promoter who had a club in Queen Village called Stars. “He invited me and allowed me to open for people,” Saget told The Inquirer in 2016. “He had me opening for Frank Stallone and [his band] Valentine, which, if you’re opening at Second and Bainbridge, you can’t get more appropriate.”

One of Mr. Saget’s earliest bits at Stars had him on the stage playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on an acoustic guitar. He had rigged up the guitar with plastic tubes, Starr said, and at the appropriate point in the song, water poured out.

Mr. Saget found the experience of making people laugh so gratifying that he began taking the train to New York for open-mike nights at comedy clubs such as the Improv and Catch a Rising Star.

While attending Temple University in the mid-1970s, Mr. Saget worked up a sketch show that he and another man performed at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It was right when Saturday Night Live started,” he said. “We’d put on these four-hour shows. They’d go on forever. We’d be in the dorms, in Harry’s Coffee Shop. We’d go to Pagano’s. They’d pay us in pizza.”

After graduating from Temple in 1978, Mr. Saget moved to Los Angeles. For the next seven years, he was the emcee at the Comedy Store, working among such comedians as David Letterman and Robin Williams, Michael Keaton, Billy Crystal, Jay Leno, Johnny Carson, and Richard Pryor.

He also warmed up the crowd before tapings of Bosom Buddies, the Tom Hanks-Peter Scolari sitcom. The producer later hired Saget to play Danny Tanner on Full House, on which he portrayed a morning TV host in San Francisco.

Mr. Saget did something like that in real life. He was cohost of the CBS Morning Program in the late 1980s, but was fired after five months. His next major gig was Full House.

He was the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos from 1989 to 1997.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office released a statement that said:

“Earlier today, deputies were called to the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes for a call about an unresponsive man in a hotel room. The man was identified as Robert Saget & pronounced deceased on scene. Detectives found no signs of foul play or drug use in this case.”

Saget had been booked to perform at the Keswick Theater in Glenside on March 18.

Temple University officials, in a statement Sunday, called Saget “a deeply loyal alumnus” and “a legendary comic.”

When the university christened the Lew Klein College of Media and Communication in 2017, Saget came to Philadelphia to serve as emcee for the ceremony, crediting television pioneer Klein with having helped him get started in his career.

“Saget will always be remembered as one of Temple’s all-time funniest Owls,” the university said. “While Saget will be deeply missed, his legacy and overall impact on the entertainment industry will continue to be felt for years to come.”

In 2016, not long after he turned 60, he told The Inquirer that he was continuing to work in everything from feature films, with a part in the recently released A Stand Up Guy, to his autobiography, Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian. He was then hard at work on the second season of Netflix’s Fuller House.

Tributes from fellow comedians and actors flooded onto Twitter as soon as the news broke of his death.

“Bob Saget was as lovely a human as he was funny. And to my mind, he was hilarious. We were close friends and I could not have loved him more,” Norman Lear tweeted

“Oh god. Bob Saget!!! The loveliest man,” wrote Kat Dennings. “I was his TV daughter for one season and he was always so kind and protective. So so sorry for his family.”

George Takei wrote, “Beloved by millions as America’s Dad, he was a regular presence in our living rooms, bringing to us the funniest videos and countless belly laughs. Gone too soon, like so many of the brightest souls.”

Inquirer Staff Writer Michael Klein contributed to this article, which also contains information from the Washington Post.