Tom Bosley

Ranking in the top ten, at a respectable #9 on TV Guide’s list of the greatest TV dads of all time, Tom Bosley may always be best remembered for his role as Howard Cunningham on the long-running sitcom Happy Days. Besides Henry Winkler, Bosley was the only actor on the show whose character appeared in every episode. But Bosley was appearing on Broadway and television long before he moved onto the set of Happy Days, and he has continued to make routine appearances on television since.

Thomas Edward Bosley was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 1, 1927. Bosley served in the United States Navy during World War II and attended DePaul University. His debut on the stage was in a 1947 production of Our Town. It would be several years before Bosley’s breakthrough stage role would come, but in 1960, he won his first Tony Award for his role in the Broadway musical Fiorello!. His motion picture debut came in 1963 opposite Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger.

Continuing to work in television throughout the 1960s, appearing on shows such as Marcus Welby, M.D., The Mod Squad, and Bonanza, Tom Bosley’s career was steady. In 1974, the well-known Happy Days aired and Bosley was a recurring character for all seventy-four episodes of its ten year run. Immediately after the show ended, Bosley was cast as a recurring character on a new primetime series as Sheriff Amos Tupper on Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury. His next regular role was on Port Charles, a spin-off of the popular daytime drama General Hospital.

Throughout the late 1990s and into the new millennium, Bosley made appearances on numerous shows including ER, Still Standing, One Tree Hill, and Family Guy, where he voiced his former Cunningham character. Bosley has voiced several other characters in children’s programs, narrated documentaries, and has also endorsed numerous consumer brand-name products including Glad, D-Con, and Sonic Drive-Ins. Bosley also continued to work on Broadway.

Bosley was married to Jane Eliot until her death in 1978. They had one daughter together. Bosley remarried in 1980 to Patricia Carr. Both Carr and Bosley’s daughter, Amy, appeared on episodes of Happy Days. Tom Bosley has three grandchildren.

YUDDY