Legendary Alex Karras dies

DETROIT (AP) — Alex Kar­ras, the rugged line­man who anchored the Detroit Lions’ defense in the 1960s, then went on to an act­ing career in which he starred in the sit­com “Web­ster” and famously punched a horse in the 1974 com­edy “Blaz­ing Sad­dles,” died Wednes­day. He was 77.

Kar­ras, who had recently suf­fered kid­ney fail­ure, died at home in Los Ange­les sur­rounded by fam­ily mem­bers, said Craig Mit­nick, Kar­ras’ attorney.

Diag­nosed with demen­tia, Kar­ras in April joined the more than 3,500 for­mer NFL play­ers suing the league for not pro­tect­ing them bet­ter from head injuries, imme­di­ately becom­ing one of the best-known names in the legal fight.

Detroit drafted Kar­ras with the 10th over­all pick in 1958 out of Iowa and he was a four-time All-Pro defen­sive tackle over 12 sea­sons with the franchise.

He was a ter­ror on the field, using a vari­ety of moves to push around oppos­ing line­men and get into the back­field. His Lions handed the pow­er­ful 1962 Green Bay Pack­ers their only defeat that sea­son, a 26–14 upset on Thanks­giv­ing dur­ing which they harassed quar­ter­back Bart Starr constantly.

Pack­ers guard Jerry Kramer wrote in his diary of the 1967 sea­son about his trep­i­da­tion over hav­ing to play Karras.

“I’m think­ing about him every minute,” Kramer wrote.

For all his prowess on the field, Kar­ras may have gained more fame when he turned to act­ing in the movies and on television.

Play­ing a not-so-bright bruiser in Mel Brooks’ “Blaz­ing Sad­dles,” he not only slugged a horse but also deliv­ered the clas­sic line: “Mongo only pawn in game of life.”

Sev­eral years before that, Kar­ras had already become a bit of a celebrity through George Plimpton’s behind-the-scenes book about what it was like to be an NFL player in the Motor City, “Paper Lion: Con­fes­sions of a Second-string Quarterback.”

That led to Kar­ras play­ing him­self in the suc­cess­ful movie adap­tion, and it opened doors for Kar­ras to be an ana­lyst along­side Howard Cosell and Frank Gif­ford on “Mon­day Night Football.”

In the 1980s, he played a sher­iff in the com­edy “Porky’s” and became a hit on the small screen as Emmanuel Lewis’ adop­tive father, George Papadapo­lis, in the sit­com “Webster.”

“Per­haps no player in Lions his­tory attained as much suc­cess and noto­ri­ety for what he did after his play­ing days as did Alex,” Lions pres­i­dent Tom Lewand said.

Recently, his wife said Kar­ras’ qual­ity of life has dete­ri­o­rated because of head injuries sus­tained dur­ing his play­ing career.

Susan Clark said ear­lier this year that her hus­band couldn’t drive after lov­ing to get behind the wheel and couldn’t remem­ber recipes for some of the favorite Ital­ian and Greek dishes he used to cook.

“This phys­i­cal beat­ing that he took as a foot­ball player has impacted his life, and there­fore it has impacted his fam­ily life,” Clark told The Asso­ci­ated Press ear­lier this year. “He is inter­ested in mak­ing the game of foot­ball safer and hop­ing that other fam­i­lies of retired play­ers will have a health­ier and hap­pier retirement.”

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Oct 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.