Milestones

By RICHARD CORLISS

DIED. ART CARNEY, 85, actor; in Chester, Conn. It was only a speck in a 50-year career that began in radio (a specialty was imitating F.D.R.), flourished on Broadway (where he was the original Felix Unger in The Odd Couple) and earned distinction in Hollywood (an Oscar for 1974's Harry and Tonto). But as Ed Norton, the "underground sanitation expert" and upstairs neighbor of Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the primal sitcom The Honeymooners, Carney proved that a second banana could be the top. His booming voice was complemented by a genius for body English. Carney's every move was an eccentric dance. He walked in a springy slouch, his thin frame forming a question mark, his gut preceding his chest by a beat or two. His hands were ever aflutter, shaking off invisible water (or sewage), conducting an imaginary silly symphony. While Ralph was the choleric loser, Ed was the lucky buffoon. Like the Looney Tunes character Pepe Le Pew (another bon vivant blithely ignorant of the way the world saw and smelled him), Norton exuded a sweet assurance that life would treat him as he treated life: with an easy shrug and an eager guffaw. That's how an acute farceur humanized a sewer rat for audiences of the '50s and every TV generation since. --By Richard Corliss