Ronnie Schell, ‘America's Slowest Rising Comedian,’ dead at 94

Ronnie Schell, who played Pvt. Duke Slater on the 1960s sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., died Friday. He was 94 and died of natural causes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Publicist Harlan Boll, who spoke to Schell’s son Gregory, said Schell had been hospitalized after a recent fall.

Schell left Gomer Pyle during its fourth season to star as a DJ in his own sitcom, Good Morning, World, which flopped after 26 episodes. He returned for the show’s fifth and final season, by then promoted to corporal. San Francisco radio personality Don Sherwood coined the nickname “America’s Slowest Rising Comedian,” Schell told The Mercury News in 2011, noting that many colleagues moved on ahead.

“I always say it’s been mighty lonely in the middle,” he told the San Jose, California, newspaper. His Good Morning, World co-star was Goldie Hawn. Born Ronald Ralph Schell in Richmond, California, on Dec. 23, 1931, he served four years in the U.S.

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