Robert Brackett “Bob” Elliott, actor and comedian, one-half of the comedy duo of Bob and Ray has died throat cancer at the age of 92.
Bob Elliot was the father of comedian/actor Chris Elliott and grandfather of Abby Elliott.
Elliott was born in Winchester, Massachusetts, the son of Gail Marguarite (née Brackett), a needleworker, and Fred Russell Elliott, who worked in insurance.
On radio, he appeared in programs with his long-time partner Ray Goulding. These were in different series and time slots over decades, beginning in the late 1940s at Boston’s WHDH radio when the two were first paired for Matinee with Bob and Ray.
On television, Elliott and Goulding hosted The Bob and Ray Show from 1951 to 1953. Elliott appeared on a number of other television programs, including Happy Days; Newhart; and Bob & Ray, Jane, Laraine & Gilda in 1979 (with Goulding, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner). He appeared on radio with Garrison Keillor in The American Radio Company of the Air.
Bob and Ray writer Raymond Knight died in 1953. In 1954, Elliott married Knight’s widow, Lee.
In 1989, Elliott co-authored son Chris Elliott’s mock autobiography, Daddy’s Boy: A Son’s Shocking Account of Life with a Famous Father. In 1990, Elliott portrayed “Fred Peterson” in the television series Get a Life, which starred
Chris as his son. Four years later, the elder Elliott appeared in the Tim Burton production Cabin Boy, playing Chris’ father again. In 2004, he appeared in a skit on the Air America radio program The O’Franken Factor.
