Comedian Gary Shandling.Comedian and former Tucsonan Gary Shandling died Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 66.
Shandling is best known for starring in situation comedies in the 1980s and 1990s, including cable's Larry Sanders Show, a mocking look at late-night talk shows.
Shandling was raised in Tucson, went to Palo Verde High School and enrolled in the University of Arizona, intent on a career different than what he ended up doing. He told fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld about it on a recent episode of Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
“I was an electrical engineering major at the University of Arizona, and that taught me the discipline of working out formulas and having no other life cause you had to work so hard to get that stuff right," Shandling said.
NPR reported Friday that Shandling died of an apparent heart attack.
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