The show fared slightly better than Frye, but was canceled after one season. In 1988, Daily tried his hand again at starring roles, this time as another doctor on the sitcom Starting from Scratch. He also made many appearances in the Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour. After Richard Dawson's departure, Daily was a semi-regular for the final three years of the show's CBS and syndicated run. Daily, a lifelong lover of magic, made three syndicated specials introducing young magicians called Bill Daily's Hocus-Pocus Gang which aired in 19.ĭaily occasionally served as a panelist in the 1970s CBS game show Match Game. Called Small & Frye, the show featured Daily as a neurotic doctor it lasted only three months before being canceled. Borden, a commercial airline navigator who later became a co-pilot, lived across the hall from Bob Newhart's Bob Hartley character, and would frequently pop into the Hartleys' apartment to borrow things, mooch a meal, or have the Hartleys take care of his son when he had custody of him.ĭaily returned to stand-up, but in 1980, after years of making a living as a second banana, Daily was offered his own show. In 1972, two years after Jeannie was canceled, Daily was back on television in another aviator's uniform, as Howard Borden in The Bob Newhart Show. Veteran sitcom writer Sidney Sheldon liked Daily's work and hired him for a supporting role in I Dream of Jeannie. In 1963, Steve Allen appeared on The Mike Douglas Show, saw Daily do a comedy bit and offered him a job in Los Angeles as an announcer, writer and performer on his syndicated show.ĭaily appeared in guest spots in My Mother the Car, The Farmer's Daughter, and Bewitched. During his days off, Daily drove to Cleveland to write, direct and perform on The Mike Douglas Show.
Daily stated that preparing for a Chicago-area Emmy Award telecast, he asked a young Bob Newhart to come up with a routine about press agents that resulted in the routine "Abe Lincoln vs. After graduating from the Goodman Theatre School, Daily worked for the NBC television station WMAQ in Chicago as an announcer and floor manager. In the early 1950s he was drafted into the United States Army, serving in the Korean War with an artillery unit and later with an entertainment unit.įollowing his time in the Army, Daily began performing stand-up comedy and gradually began playing some of the bigger clubs in the country.
Following graduation from Lane Technical High School, Daily studied for a time at the Goodman Theatre School, then left home to become a professional musician, playing upright bass with jazz bands in numerous clubs across the Midwest. In 1939, Daily and his family moved from Des Moines to Chicago, Illinois, where he spent the rest of his youth. Two weeks after he was born, Daily’s father went out to get a loaf of bread and never returned. He was a regular panelist in three incarnations of Match Game:ĭaily was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Fern Ellis and Raymond Daily.
He is best known for his roles as Roger Healey in I Dream of Jeannie and Howard Borden in The Bob Newhart Show. William Edward "Bill" Daily (30 August 1927 – 4 September 2018) was an American actor and comedian.