Harvey Korman was a renowned television comedy veteran, distinguished by his lanky physique and exceptional flair for broad comic characterizations. He enjoyed a decade-long tenure as the leading man and second banana extraordinaire on The Carol Burnett Show, which premiered in 1967.
Born Harvey Herschel Korman in Chicago, Illinois, he was the son of Ellen (Blecher) and Cyril Raymond Korman, a salesman. His parents, both immigrants, hailed from Russian Jewish families. Korman's persistent presence on television dates back to the early 1960s, when he first gained recognition as a featured performer on The Danny Kaye Show, a lively musical variety series that showcased his ability to provide sturdy support to a multi-talented star in a wide range of comedy sketches.
Korman's large, expressive features and wonderfully mutable voice allowed him to effortlessly play a diverse array of characters. One of his earliest and most notable characterizations was as the distinctively snooty voice of The Great Gazoo, a little helmeted space man from the future, in The Flintstones (1960).
Throughout his career, Korman garnered four Emmy Awards for his work with Carol Burnett. Despite his success, he was unable to find another showcase for his talents of similar magnitude, although he did appear in several unsuccessful pilots and short-lived sitcoms. Korman occasionally ventured outside of comedy, playing a straight man in the TV biopic Bud and Lou (1978) opposite Buddy Hackett's Lou Costello.
In addition to his acting work, Korman directed and/or produced sitcom episodes and TV comedy specials. He made his feature film debut in The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966) and went on to appear in several films, including Mel Brooks' classic Western spoof Blazing Saddles (1974),High Anxiety (1977),and History of the World: Part I (1981). Korman's most recent film appearances were in the 1994 features The Flintstones (1994) and Radioland Murders (1994).
