Comic actor Joe Flaherty, one of the Emmy-winning members of the beloved and influential Canadian sketch comedy troupe SCTV, has died, ABC Audio has confirmed. He was 82.
The Comedic Artists Alliance, which had previously led a GoFundMe for at-home care for the actor, passed along a statement from Flaherty’s daughter, Gudrun. “My dad was a kind, sweet soul who blessed all who knew him and those who loved his work,” she began.
“Thank you to everyone who cared for him; he loved that he was able to make people laugh. He will be so deeply missed, but we are eternally grateful to God for him being in our lives,” the statement concluded.
The comic actor parlayed his SCTV fame to the big and small screens, appearing in movies including 1981’s hit Stripes with Bill Murray and 1989’s Back to the Future Part II, playing a Western Union man with a dry sense of humor and a very wet yet important envelope from the past for Michael J. Fox‘s Marty McFly.
He also appeared in the 1996 Adam Sandler hit Happy Gilmore, among others.
On the small screen, Flaherty starred in Police Academy: The Series, the beloved but short-lived Freaks and Geeks, and made numerous one-off appearances in shows like Frasier and That 70s Show.
Flaherty’s cause of death was not made public.
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