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Television Writer, Humor Columnist Larry Miller Dies at 81

By David Kline
Editor

Larry Miller, a veteran television writer and humor columnist, died June 29 in Sacramento from complications related to diabetes. He was 81.

Miller was hospitalized in April for a foot problem. After early signs of recuperation, he was beset by a blood infection and other complications from which he could not recover, daughter Jackie House said last week.

“My dad loved entertaining and making people laugh,” House said.

In recent years, the main outlet for his humor was “Miller Light,” a weekly column he began writing in 1985. In the column, distributed by Capitol News Service and published regularly in Spectrum, Miller found humor in aging, in routines of everyday life, in family and even in death.

In a column after the passing of his wife, Florence, in 1997, Miller wrote:

“When it came time to make funeral arrangements, I had the strangest experience. The local funeral director came on the phone with a deep, gravely serious tone of voice which reminded me of Digger O’Dell, the funeral director on the old ‘Fibber McGee and Molly’ radio show. I couldn’t hold back the laugh which I guess had been coming for a while.”

Even in his own death, Miller had the last laugh. Because of a delay in notifying the column’s distributor of the writer’s passing, three of his past columns were republished after his death, each including the disclaimer, “Larry Miller is taking a break from writing, but will return soon with new ‘Miller Light’ columns.”

The disclaimer, requested by Miller, reflected his optimistic view of life. In the hospital, he had discussed going home to write about his experiences.

“Throughout his life he maintained an attitude of looking forward to new opportunities and taking life as it came, rather than dwelling on the past,” House said.

Miller was born Israel Reinish, April 23, 1923 in Philadelphia, Pa. His parents, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, ran a bread and pastry shop.

“My father’s first job was selling soft pretzels, a Philadelphia tradition,” House said. “On weekends he would go to the pretzel factory, buy a few dozen for a penny apiece, then take the trolley car to Fairmont Park and walk around selling pretzels for 3 cents each. On a good day he’d make enough to ride the trolley back home — 5 cent fare — and still have a profit. Otherwise, he’d walk home.”

He also enjoyed producing shows for a community theater group, and it was during one of these shows that he met his future wife, Florence Miller, better known by the nickname “Flossie.”

The couple married after he returned from serving in the U.S. Army as a meteorologist in China and India.

“My generation married young,” he explained in a May 1999 column. “Back in 1946, it was just after World War II and I was a freshman in college. My dear bride was not yet 21 and I was 23 when we marched to the altar. All our friends were getting married and expected to live happily ever after. What did we know? We were young and in love.”

He often said they had a “mixed marriage” — she smoked and he didn’t.

He began a career writing programs for a Philadelphia radio station, and then was hired to write stunts for “Beat the Clock,” a television show produced in New York. In 1962, with the entertainment industry moving jobs from New York to California, he was offered a position as a writer for a new show to be produced in Hollywood.

“We sold our furniture, packed up the station wagon, and began a three-week trip across the country stopping at all the various points of interest along the way, my brother Jeff and I fighting in the back seat the whole time!” House recalled. “When we arrived in Los Angeles we went straight to the new show producer’s home and the family waited in the car while my dad went in and learned that the producer was in the midst of a divorce, the show had been canceled, and there was no job.”

Faced with this disappointment, Israel Reinish decided to be a self-employed, freelance television writer. He also decided to change his name to Larry Miller.

“He took on this more ‘mainstream’ name to facilitate his entry into a very competitive business, where ethnicity could pose barriers,” House explained. “He adopted my mother’s last name and chose ‘Larry’ because Lawrence rhymed with Florence, my mother’s name.”

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