Don Rickles

About Don Rickles

Don Rickles was an American stand-up comedian and actor whose signature insult comedy made him a legend in entertainment. He appeared in films including Run Silent Run Deep, Kelly's Heroes, and Casino, voiced Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story films, and starred in the sitcom C.P.O. Sharkey. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show and late-night television, he won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2008 for Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project.

In this interview

• Reflects on being unpolitically correct in his day compared to modern blue comedy.
• Discusses the fine line of making people laugh without truly hurting them.
• Explains his comedy insulted everyone equally regardless of ethnicity or background.
• Notes he was blessed with the gift of knowing what makes people laugh.

“I've always been blessed with the fine line of what makes people laugh and so I've always had the gift to make people laugh.”— Don Rickles, in this interview

Since this interview

Rickles continued appearing on late-night talk shows including Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and made a guest appearance on one of the final episodes of The Late Show with David Letterman in May 2015. He died on April 6, 2017, at age 90, at his home in Century City, Los Angeles, from kidney failure.