Garry Shandling was more like his TV alter ego, Larry Sanders, than he’d care to admit.
The comedian, who died Thursday at 66, was, like HBO’s fictional talk-show host, neurotic and deeply insecure. But he was also a brilliant comic mind whose satire tapped into the neuroses of many in Hollywood.
The Larry Sanders Show, which aired 89 episodes from 1992 to 1998, was one of HBO’s earliest breakouts. Critically beloved for its lacerating look about the ego clashes behind the scenes of a late-night talk show, it arrived just as real late-night television was undergoing its own upheaval, with the retirement of Johnny Carson, the scheming by Jay Leno to succeed him, and David Letterman’s subsequent defection to CBS. (Shandling turned down NBC's offer to replace him).
He created Sanders, along with Jeffrey Tambor’s unctuous sidekick, Hank Kingsley, and growling producer Artie (Rip Torn), by drawing from his own tenure as a fill-in for Carson, who launched Shandling’s performing career by booking him for a stand-up gig after he'd written sitcom scripts.
Sanders followed an earlier series, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, which ran for four years on Showtime and featured a slightly fictionalized Shandling as a neurotic, single comedian, in which he sometimes spoke directly to the camera. One episode featured his appearance on a talk show, which sparked his idea for the later series.
"I thought I could explore some real human behavior and emotion. I knew I could dig deeper," he told me in 2007. "People on the show were portrayed against type as being very apart from their personas, as these kind of obnoxious people they didn't want to be seen as," he said.
The Larry Sanders Show had modest ratings but loyal fans, and won its only Emmy for writing of its finale, by Shandling and Peter Tolan, that featured a starry lineup of cameos including Warren Beatty, Ellen DeGeneres, Carol Burnett and David Duchovny. Cast members Mary Lynn Rajskub and Janeane Garofalo credited Shandling’s help as an acting coach and champion of improvisation, which most shows frown upon. "I was always really scared but really excited" by that freedom, Rajskub said in 2009.
Sanders sparked a wave of insider-y, knowing showbiz satires on TV and film, including NBC's 30 Rock and HBO's Entourage, and the buzz surrounding it led Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes, who then ran HBO, to pursue more projects including Sex and the City and The Sopranos.
Shandling didn’t work much after that; in January, he appeared in pal Jerry Seinfeld’s web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, in an episode eerily titled “It’s Great That Garry Shandling is Still Alive.”
But after the 2007 DVD release of 23 favorite episodes, another anxiety-provoking exercise, he was coy about what came next: "I have my ideas,” he said. “I am still struggling with this. When it's released, I think that's a great phrase for how I'll feel."
