Comedian

Born: May 8, 1926;

Died: April 6, 2017

DON Rickles, who has died aged 90, was a comedian whose cheeky style endeared him to audiences and made him the acknowledged grandmaster of insult comedy and a hero for other comedians.

For more than half a century, Rickles headlined casinos and nightclubs from Las Vegas to Atlantic City, and livened up late-night talk shows.

No one was exempt from his put-downs, from presidents to fellow celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Johnny Carson.

Even volatile Sinatra let Rickles have his comedic way with him. "Hey, Frank, make yourself at home. Hit somebody," Rickles said to the singer attending his show. Sinatra laughed.

Despite jokes that from other comics might have inspired boycotts, he was one of the most beloved people in showbusiness, idolised by everyone from Joan Rivers to Chris Rock. James Caan once said that Rickles helped inspire the blustering Sonny Corleone of The Godfather.

Rickles patented a confrontational style that stand-up performers still emulate, but one that kept him on the right side of trouble.

He emerged in the late 1950s, a time when comics were taking greater risks, becoming more politicised and more introspective. Rickles managed to shock his audiences without cutting social commentary or truly personal self-criticism. He operated under a code - go far with ethnic jokes and sex jokes but make sure everyone knows it's for fun.

"I think the reason that (my act) caught on and gave me a wonderful career is that I was never mean-spirited," he once said. "Not that you had to like it, but you had to be under a rock somewhere not to get it."

In 2008, Rickles won the Emmy for best individual performance in a variety show for the film Mr Warmth: The Don Rickles Project.

Rickles' films ranged from comedies to dramas and included Run Silent, Run Deep, starring Clark Gable, The Rat Race, with Tony Curtis, Kelly's Heroes, and Martin Scorsese's Casino. He also appeared in four Beach Party films in the 1960s and provided the voice of Mr Potato Head in the animated Toy Story films.

"I did have somewhat of a career. I did some good movies," he said in 2007. "On the whole, I think that (movies) and Broadway are the two things that I would have liked to have a little more of. But I'm happy with my career."

For his standup act, Rickles would begin a show by charging on stage and berating the people sitting down front. To an elderly lady he might say, "What are you doing up, Mom? Go lie down." To a young man: "Look at this kid staring. That comes from locking yourself in the bathroom too much."

His bald head shining, he would gleefully croon his theme song, I'm a Nice Guy, and make fun of blacks and gays, the Irish and the Italians, with special attention for his own people, the Jews.

To his great disappointment, Rickles was never able to transfer his success to a long-running weekly situation comedy. The Don Rickles Show lasted just one season in 1972. CPO Sharkey, in which he played an acid-tongued Navy chief petty officer, fared slightly better, airing from 1976 to 1978.

Born in New York, Rickles set out to be a serious actor, enrolling in New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He had little luck finding acting jobs, however, and supported himself by selling used cars, life insurance and cosmetics — badly, he said. ("I couldn't sell air conditioners on a 98-degree day.")

He finally decided to try comedy, appearing at small hotels in New York's Catskill mountains and in rundown night clubs. The turning point came at a strip joint in Washington DC "The customers were right on top of you, always heckling, and I gave it right back to them," he recalled in 1982.

Rickles often said that he used insults as a way of shielding his insecurity. "I loved to perform, but I was really a very shy and frightened kid," he recalled in 1980.

He married Barbara Sklar, his agent's secretary, in 1965, and they had two children, actress Mindy Rickles and writer-producer Lawrence Rickles, who helped on the HBO film about his father. Lawrence Rickles died of complications from pneumonia in 2011.

In a 1993 interview, Rickles' brassy voice softened when he was asked how he wanted people to remember him. "If people know me well, they know I'm an honest friend. I'm emotional, I'm caring, I'm loyal. Loyalty in this business is very important."

Besides his wife, Rickles' survivors include their daughter Mindy Mann, and Rickles' two grandchildren, Ethan and Harrison Mann.