Don Rickles, legendary insult comic, dead at 90
Source: CNN
(CNN) Don Rickles, a comedian and actor known for his abrasive humor, died Thursday from kidney failure at his Los Angeles home, according to his publicist Paul Shefrin.
He was 90 years old.
Known as the world's greatest insult comic, Rickles enjoyed a career which spanned centuries (sic) and found him performing in everything from nightclubs to a Martin Scorsese film.
Born in the Jackson Heights section of Queens in New York City, Rickles was the only child of an insurance salesman and housewife. After he graduated from high school in the 1940s he did a two year stint in the Navy before following in his father's footsteps as an insurance agent. That career didn't take off and Rickles enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He tried his hand at performing comedy in nightclubs in between acting gigs and it was there he found his true calling by taking on hecklers.
Rickles was doing just that in the 1950s when Frank Sinatra and his entourage happened upon his performance in Miami Beach. Sinatra took such a strong liking to the comic that Rickles became an honorary member of the Rat Pack and the singer helped to open doors for him and his caustic wit.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/06/entertainment/don-rickles-dead/index.html
EDIT - CNN finally put up their obit and I added to the OP. Whoever wrote it felt that Rickles' career spanned "centuries"!
Breaking.
R.I.P. !!!!
EDIT to add NYT write-up (CNN is slow) -
[div class"excerpt"]Don Rickles, Equal Opportunity Offender of Comedy, Dies at 90
Don Rickles, the acidic stand-up comic who became world-famous not by telling jokes but by insulting his audience, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90.
The cause was kidney failure, said a spokesman, Paul Shefrin.
For more than half a century, on nightclub stages, in concert halls and on television, Mr. Rickles made outrageously derisive comments about peoples looks, their ethnicity, their spouses, their sexual orientation, their jobs or anything else he could think of. He didnt discriminate: His incendiary unpleasantries were aimed at the biggest stars in show business (Frank Sinatra was a favorite target) and at ordinary paying customers.
His rise to national prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s roughly coincided with the success of All in the Family, the groundbreaking situation comedy whose protagonist, Archie Bunker, was an outspoken bigot. Mr. Rickless humor was similarly transgressive. But he went further than Archie Bunker, and while Carroll OConnor, who played Archie, was speaking words someone else had written and was invariably the butt of the joke Mr. Rickles, whose targets included his fellow Jews, never needed a script and was always in charge.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/arts/television/don-rickles-dead-comedian.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
RIP
And then I found a tweet from Rickles done during the primaries -
Link to tweet
Man - Rickles was always on!
Anyway, the other guest present was G. Gordon Liddy of all people!
Watching those two play against each other was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life!
I loved his short lived tv show in the 1960's.
One week his friend Frank Sinatra was on the show around the time that Frank was being investigated publicly for mob connections - I don't remember if it had anything to do with him wanted to buy the Cal-Neva casino - the first time, not the second. I think the show was broadcast live without any editing which added to the tension. Anyways Don Rickles was being very careful not to bring up any thing remotely connected to Frank's troubles during the show, if fact you could see that Don was really worried that Frank might get really upset and walk off the show, so Don was treating him with kid gloves - no joking at all -- Don was so nervous he couldn't hide it. Near the end of the show when they were singing a song together, Frank mentioned to Don that "if he didn't watch his step, he would send his boys after him". Don wasn't expecting this from Frank at all and after a couple of seconds of him being momentarily disorientated from Frank's comment, he broke out laughing.
Thanks for all the laughs Don,
Burfman......
I came to know, understand, that he was a very generous sweetheart of a guy who was nearly universally loved by those who knew him - and those he insulted.
That turned me around ... 
there were times he made me laugh my ass off to the point I couldn't breathe.
RIP......
