I mean, outrageously funny.”<br />Mr. Rickles got his first break, the story goes, when Sinatra<br />and some of his friends came to see him perform in 1957 — in Hollywood, according to most sources, although Mr. Rickles said it was in Miami.<br />That show included appearances by David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart and Bob Newhart, whose soft-spoken style of comedy could not be further removed from Mr. Rickles’s,<br />but who he often said was his closest friend in show business.<br />A variety show in 1968 and a situation comedy in 1972, both called “The Don Rickles Show,” were short-lived, as was “Daddy Dearest,” a 1993 sitcom in which he<br />and the comedian Richard Lewis played father and son.<br />Warmth,” the biggest names in show business felt that “if they hadn’t been insulted by Rickles, they weren’t with it.”<br />His appearances insulting celebrities on the Dean Martin roasts and his sparring matches with Carson cemented Mr. Rickles’s reputation,<br />but his unscripted brand of humor proved an uneasy fit for weekly television.<br />Mr. Rickles was soon being championed by Sinatra, Dean Martin and the other members of the show business circle known as the Rat Pack.<br />Don Rickles, Comedy’s Equal Opportunity Offender, Dies at 90 -<br />By PETER KEEPNEWS and RICHARD SEVEROAPRIL 6, 2017<br />Don Rickles, the acidic stand-up comic who became world-famous not by telling jokes<br />but by insulting his audience, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles.
