Richard Schaal as "Mr. Kendall"

Richard Schaal was an film, stage and television actor, writer and director, born on May 5, 1928, in Chicago. He had been a construction worker as a young man, before he saw early Second City performances in Chicago and got hooked. In 1962, Schaal joined the Second City, studying at the feet of Paul Sills and Viola Spolin, and working alongside the likes of Del Close and Avery Schreiber. He became skilled in sketch and improvisational comedy. Schaal and Valerie Harper wrote "Love and the Visitor" (1970) for Love, American Style, a TV series. He was featured in a number of episodes of the 1970s sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show (where he played no fewer than four different characters: Howard Arnell, his brother Paul, Chuckles the Clown and Dino), The Bob Newhart Show (as three characters: Don Fezler, Don Livingston and Chuck Brock), Rhoda (as Charlie Burke) and Phyllis (23 episodes as Leo Heatherton). His earliest appearance with Mary Tyler Moore was in the 1966 Dick Van Dyke Show episode "Dear Sally Rogers" (billed as Dick Schaal). In both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, he played alongside his then-wife, Valerie Harper. In 1983, he had a recurring role in Just Our Luck.

He also appeared in movies like The Russians are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966); The Virgin President (1969), Slaughterhouse Five (1972), Steelyard Blues (1973); A Knife for the Ladies (1974), Americathon (1979); The Hollywood Knights (1980); O'Hara's Wife (1982, with Ed Asner); and, of course, Once Bitten (1985).

Schaal was married three times, first to Lois Treacy, second to actress Valerie Harper, and third to Tasha Brittain. With Treacy, he had one child, American actress Wendy Schaal.

Schaal died November 4, 2014, in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, at age 86. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles (in the "Contentment section").

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