Bill Daily

For other people with a similar name, see William Daily

Bill Daily
Daily as Roger Healey, 1969
Born	August 30, 1927(1927-08-30) Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, comedian
Years active	1953–2010
Spouse(s)	Patricia Anderson (1949–1976; 2 children) Vivian Sanchez (1980–?) Becky Daily (1993–2010, her death)

Bill Daily (born August 30, 1927) is an American actor, comedian and a veteran of many television sitcoms. He is known for playing astronaut Roger Healey on I Dream of Jeannie and commercial airline navigator Howard Borden on The Bob Newhart Show.

Early life and career

Daily's father died when Bill was young, and he was raised by his mother and other family members. In 1939, Daily and his family moved from Des Moines, Iowa to Chicago, where he spent the rest of his youth. Upon leaving Lane Technical High School, Daily left home to try to carve out a life as a musician, playing bass with jazz bands in numerous clubs across the Midwest. He was drafted into the United States Army and served in the Korean War with an artillery unit, later being transferred to an entertainment unit.

It was in his traveling-musician days that Daily began performing stand-up and gradually began playing some of the bigger clubs in the country. After graduating from the Goodman Theatre School, Daily worked for the NBC television station in Chicago, WMAQ, as an announcer and floor manager. He eventually became a staff director. Daily stated that preparing for a Chicago-area Emmy Award telecast, he asked a young Bob Newhart to come up with a routine about press agents which resulted in the routine "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue".

Television roles

Daily appeared in guest spots on My Mother the Car, The Farmer's Daughter and Bewitched. Veteran sitcom writer Sidney Sheldon liked Daily's work and hired him for a supporting role on I Dream of Jeannie.

In 1972, two years after Jeannie was canceled, Daily was back on TV in another aviator's uniform, as Howard Borden in The Bob Newhart Show. Borden, a commercial-airline navigator who later became a co-pilot, lived across the hall from Bob Newhart's Bob Hartley character, and would frequently pop into the Hartleys' apartment to borrow things, mooch a meal, or have the Hartleys take care of his son when he had custody of him.

For the two years that followed The Bob Newhart Show, Daily returned to stand-up, but in 1980, after years of making a living as a second banana, Daily was offered his own show. Called Small & Frye, the show featured Daily as a neurotic doctor; it lasted only three months before being canceled. Daily, a lifelong lover of magic, made three syndicated specials introducing young magicians called Bill Daily's Hocus-Pocus Gang which aired in 1982 and 1983. In 1988, Daily tried his hand again at starring roles, this time as another doctor on the sitcom Starting From Scratch.

It fared slightly better than Frye, and was canceled after one season. Daily's most notable post-Newhart role was another supporting character, that of Larry the psychiatrist on the cult favorite ALF (1986); Jack Riley appeared as an unnamed patient, clearly reprising Elliot Carlin from The Bob Newhart Show. ALF claimed to have learned all he knew about psychology from watching the earlier series.

Bill Daily at the 2011 Supanova Pop Culture Expo

During the 1980s–1990s, Daily reprised his I Dream of Jeannie role of Roger Healey in two made-for-TV reunion movies: I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later (1985) and I Still Dream of Jeannie (1991). In 1990, he reunited with Bob Newhart as a new, overbearing neighbor in the Newhart episode "Good Neighbor Sam". Also in 1991, he reprised the role of Howard Borden in The Bob Newhart Show: 19th Anniversary, which aired in February of that year. In 1997, he was a guest star on Caroline in the City.^{[citation needed]}

In 1987, he was named director of the New Mexico Film Commission.

Daily also occasionally served as a panelist on the 1970s CBS game show The Match Game. After Richard Dawson's departure, Daily was a semi-regular for the final three years of the show's CBS and syndicated run.

Personal life

Daily married his first wife, Patricia Anderson, in 1949. In 1976, the couple divorced. Daily has two adopted children, a son, Patrick, and a daughter, Kimberley. His son is a key grip and stunt pilot in Hollywood, and his daughter is a retired teacher in Colorado. In 1980 he married Vivian Sanchez, with whom he traveled on the road performing Lover's Leap for two years, and with whom he had one child, Becca. He and Sanchez later divorced.^{[citation needed]}

In 1993, he married Becky Daily. The couple remained together until her death in 2010. Although mostly retired, he still does some live comedy and the occasional TV guest appearance. From 2006 to February 2009, he was a guest host on radio station KBQI, 107.9, in Albuquerque, on Thursday mornings.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

Film and Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1964	Bewitched	Mr. Johnson	Episode: "A Vision of Sugar Plums"
1965	The Farmer's Daughter	Manfred	Episode: "Katy by Moonlight"
1965–70	I Dream of Jeannie	Major Roger Healey	Main cast (131 episodes)
1965	My Mother the Car	Phil Durkin	Episode: "The De-Fenders"
1965	The Farmer's Daughter	Gallery Manager	Episode: "Forever Is a Cast Iron Mess"
1969	In Name Only	Peter Garrity	TV film
1971	The Barefoot Executive	Navigator	Feature film
1971	Inside O.U.T.	Ron Hart	TV pilot episode
1972	Love, American Style	Larry	"Love and the Single Sister" segment
1972	Getting Together	McAdam	Episode: "Broken-Hearted Melody"
1972	The Mary Tyler Moore Show	Peter "Pete" Peterson	Episode: "His Two Right Arms"
1972–78	The Bob Newhart Show	Howard Borden	Main cast (140 episodes)
1972	Love, American Style	Donald Baxter	"Love and the Country Girl" segment
1978	Murder at the Mardi Gras	Jack Murphy	TV film
1978	Flying High	Bob Griffen	Recurring role (2 episodes)
1979	$weepstake$	Fred	Episode #1.1
1979	Rendezvous Hotel	Walter Grainger	TV film
1979	CHiPs	Balford	Episodes: "Roller Disco" (Parts 1 & 2)
1979	The Love Boat	Paul Turner	Segment: "Rent a Family" (Parts 1 & 2)
1980	Valentine Magic on Love Island	Charles	TV film
1980	Alone at Last	Greg Elliott	TV pilot episode
1981	Aloha Paradise	Curtis Shea	Main cast (8 episodes)
1982	The Powers of Matthew Star	Frank Trenton	Episode: "Daredevil"
1983	Trapper John, M.D.	Mr. Stevens	Episode: "The Spy Who Bugged Me"
1983	Small & Frye	Dr. Hanratty	Main role (6 episodes)
1985	Comedy Factory	The Mayor	Episode: "Honey, It's the Mayor"
1985	I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later	Col. Roger Healey	TV film
1987–89	ALF	Dr. Lawrence 'Larry' Dykstra	Recurring role (4 episodes)
1988–89	Starting from Scratch	Dr. James Shepherd	Main cast (22 episodes)
1990	Newhart	Sam Leary	Episode: "Good Neighbor Sam"
1990	The Munsters Today	Count Strimpkin	Episode: "Thicker Than Water"
1991	I Still Dream of Jeannie	Col. Roger Healey	TV film
1991	The Bob Newhart Show: 19th Anniversary Special	Howard Borden	TV special
1991	Alligator II: The Mutation	Mayor Anderson	Direct-to-video film
1992–93	Bob	Vic Victor	Recurring role (2 episodes)
1997	George and Leo	The Pilot	Episode: "The Cameo Show"
1997	The Naked Truth	Doc	Episode: "He Ain't Famous, He's My Brother"
1997	Caroline in the City	Charlie's Father	Recurring role (2 episodes)
2010	Horrorween	GrandPa	Feature film

References

Notes

External links

• Bill Daily at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill Daily interview video at the Archive of American Television