Comedian

69 Dick Smothers Comedian 60 Joe Walsh Singer 51 Bo Derek Actress 38 Callie Thorne Actress 29 Nadine Velazquez Actress

Critic's Pick-- Comedian Dennis Miller (above) grabs the reins of the Critic's Choice Awards (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54), celebrating the best in film.

The reason gas prices are so high is because the oil is in Texas and Oklahoma and all the dipsticks are in Washington." - YAKOV SMIRNOFF, Russian-born comedian now working as a psychologist and family therapist

The turning point for the Wham City Comedy Tour came at a gig in Buffalo, N.Y. And, in typical Wham City fashion, it took some unexpected chaos and quick improvisation to reach it. On Monday, the tour - which consists of six comedians from the city's experimental arts collective Wham City and a director, all traveling the Northeast and Midwest in a white van for about three weeks this month - played an arts gallery/performance space called the...

Jerry LesterComedianJerry Lester, an ebullient comedian and former song-and-dance man who became the host of the first successful late-night network television talk and variety show, died of complications of Alzheimer's disease Thursday in Miami. He was 85.Mr. Lester appeared in Broadway musicals and a few Hollywood films in the 1940s. He also was familiar to radio audiences, but he broke into late-night television in 1950 almost by mistake.Appearing as a guest on a talk show with Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg, his shameless mugging, corny jokes and irrepressible energy lighted up the NBC telephone switchboard, prompting Pat Weaver, the president of NBC, to offer the comedian a show of his own on the spot.

DODY GOODMAN, 93 Comedian and actress Dody Goodman, the comedian known for her television appearances on Jack Paar's late-night talk show and as the mother on the soap-opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, died Sunday at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey. Ms. Goodman, with her pixyish appearance and Southern-tinged, quavery voice, had an eclectic show-business career. She moved easily from stage to television to movies, where she appeared in such popular films as Grease and Grease 2, playing Blanche, the principal's assistant, and in Splash.