I was shocked to see this. Here's a pretty comprehensive article from The Hollywood Reporter: "Comedian David Brenner Dies at 78"
The dude was all over TV in the '70s and '80s. He was a favorite of Johnny Carson, and the Hollywood Reporter article has a clip of the first of his 158 appearances on The Tonight Show.
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I was shocked to read he was 78! He was one of the first stand-up comics that I actually knew by name (from Carson, of course), and would try to make an effort to stay up to catch if I saw his name in the TV listings. He had that aura of being just a nice guy ... which, judging from the tributes I've been reading, he really was.
Yeah. There are some good stories about David Brenner from the ever-reliable Mark Evanier: News From Me: David Brenner.
The one from Richard Lewis shows that Brenner was a guy who saw that someone else's success is good for everyone and not a threat to your success -- which is not typical of Hollywood.
...Brenner is rather remembered for his leisure suit/singles bar-esque stage duds...Hey , it was the 70s !!!!!!!!!!!...Plus , I remember , when Coca-Cola started their Mr. Pibb clone version of Dr. Pepper , Brenner and George Burns appearing in a commercial for it...
I wrote a little bit about my memories of David Brenner on my somewhat-resurrected blog the other day.