“Anthony Clark died yesterday,” O’Malley wrote. “He was a hilarious guy. When my wife Lisa and I were dating back in the mid-nineties, Anthony was already famous in Boston, regularly selling out comedy shows. The first time we saw him at The Comedy Connection, we laughed and laughed and laughed. He was so unique—one of those comics who is laughing along with you at the absurdity of his stories and observations and it just made you laugh harder because he was laughing. I was a fan before I was a friend. We spoke on the phone three weeks ago. He had us laughing loudly as he always did.”
Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on April 4, 1964, Clark caught the acting bug as a fourth grader, playing Li’l Abner, before graduating to fifth- and sixth-grade productions of Music Man and Calamity Jane. In 1983, Clark left his home near the Blue Ridge Mountains for Emerson College, the basis for his first sitcom, Boston Common. He compared it to Oz. “It was a city. It had lights, the arts, museums, nightclubs, and stand-up comedy venues,” where he began building a following. After graduation, he started getting stage time in Los Angeles, where he slept on friends’ couches before landing small roles in Dogfight, starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor, and Peter Bogdaonavich’s The Thing Called Love, also alongside Phoenix.
Clark began breaking into the mainstream following a spot on HBO’s 1995 Young Comedian Show with Dave Attell, Louis C.K., Dave Chappelle, and host Garry Shandling. Within a year, he appeared as a recurring character on Ellen, as a hotel barber in The Rock, and as the star of two short-lived sitcoms, Boston Common and Soul Man. In 2000, he won the role of Greg Warner, a successful film executive and family man plagued by in-laws who won’t leave, on Yes, Dear. Working alongside Mike O’Malley, who played Jimmy, the brother-in-law living in Greg’s guest house, Clark withstood family foibles in front of a live-studio audience for six seasons and 122 episodes. Afterward, he hosted a season of Last Comic Standing and retreated from the limelight. According to O’Malley’s post, Clark “invested his money well and essentially retired after we wrapped.”
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