Comedian Louie Anderson, who entertained millions with his stand up shows and TV appearances has died at the age of 68. He had been battling blood cancer. Glenn Schwartz, who has been his longtime publicist, confirmed the news to several outlets. The game show host and three time Emmy award winner passed away at a hospital in Las Vegas, early Friday morning.

Louie Anderson had been battling diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. This is the most common type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Schwartz said that his death was due to complications arising from the cancer. He leaves behind two sisters: Lisa and Shanna Anderson.

Louie was a native of St. Paul’s Minnesota. He was well known for his role in “Baskets.” He won a Primetime Emmy for the best supporting actor for his role in 2016. He had earlier been nominated for the same role, three times in a row. However, he had won daytime Emmys, twice in 1997 and 1998, for his role in the animated series “Life with Louie” that was aired on the Fox network.

Comedy Central included him in the list of “One of the 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians of All Time.” He joked a lot about his struggle with weight in his stand-up acts.

In March 2021, he joked about his weight loss on Conan. He said that he had lost 40 pounds from intermittent fasting. He said, “I started the pandemic at about 370 to 380 pounds depending on what I was leaning on.”

In the same interview he said that he had reached 340 pounds and was hoping to reach his goal which was 275 pounds. He added that at that time, “Yes, I am going to retire my fat jokes. I think I will always be funny.”

Yes, we tend to agree as we have seen his performances in several shows including

Grace Under Fire
Touched by an Angel
Chicago Hope
Young Sheldon
Search Party
Twenties.

Louie Anderson also had the “Louie: Larger than Life” show in Las Vegas from 2003 to 2012. He wrote four books including Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother; But You Can Read Them Too.

R.I.P
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