Ted Knight Biography
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Actor Ted Knight dropped out of high school in order to enlist for World War II service. During the postwar years, Knight studied acting in Hartford, Connecticut. He became proficient with puppets and ventriloquism, which led to steady work as a TV kiddie-show host. Knight spent most of the 1950s and 1960s doing commercial voice-overs and essaying minor TV and movie roles (he was the nonspeaking cop who handed Norman Bates a robe at the end of Hitchcock's Psycho [1960 producers "humanized" him with an understanding girlfriend (played by Georgia Engel) -- and it didn't hurt that the actor later won two Emmy awards for his portrayal of the clueless Ted Baxter. When MTM left the air in 1977, Knight attempted to headline a sitcom of his own. After a couple of false starts, he struck pay dirt in 1980 with Too Close for Comfort, playing a comic-strip artist with two nubile daughters. Too Close left the network for syndication in 1984, then matriculated into The Ted Knight Show in 1985. Though gravely ill, Ted Knight valiantly taped a years' worth of episodes before succumbing to cancer at the age of 62. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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