Arnold Stang; prolific comic actor was Berle sidekick, voice of Top Cat

Mr. Stang (right) played Felix Ungar alongside Milt Kamen’s Oscar Madison in a production of “The Odd Couple’’ at the Chateau de Ville in Randolph.

By Bryan Marquard

Globe Staff / December 22, 2009

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With his horn-rimmed glasses, diminutive physique, and flawless timing, Arnold Stang created a host of enduring comic characters. He was Francis, a sidekick on Milton Berle’s 1950s TV show; he provided the voice of the main character in the 1960s cartoon “Top Cat’’; and he was Ray in the 1963 movie “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World’’ that featured a who’s who of comedians.

When asked about his favorite performance, however, Mr. Stang would name the character Sparrow he played in “The Man With the Golden Arm,’’ the 1955 film that starred Frank Sinatra as a junkie.

“I think it was always meaningful for him to do ‘The Man With the Golden Arm’ with Frank Sinatra,’’ said Mr. Stang’s wife, JoAnne, of Needham, “but really I think he approached every job, from the smallest to the greatest, with the same equanimity.’’

Mr. Stang, whose career spanned more than 70 years - from radio dramas to the nascent days of television to commercials he taped in his 80s - died of pneumonia Sunday at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. He was 91 and had moved with his wife to Needham a decade ago to live closer to their children.

Moving effortlessly from bopping Berle in the face with a make-up powder puff, to adopting a staid demeanor in a commercial, to adding a voice-over for a show on the Cartoon Network, Mr. Stang filled roles in every acting medium. This established his staying power in the acting profession.

“I think despite the fact that he was uproariously funny, he did take himself very seriously,’’ said his son, David, of Cambridge. “He was drawn to serious roles in classical theater, as well as in television. My father took more than a passing pride in that kind of versatility.’’

Though Mr. Stang spent his childhood in New York City - he was born in Manhattan and grew up in Brooklyn - he took pleasure in creating a mythology about himself. Nearly any account of his life on the Internet speaks of his childhood in Chelsea and his migration to New York as a child to audition for roles in radio theater.

“It was whimsy on his part,’’ his son said. “At some point thousands of years ago, it amused him to invent this, and at some point it became an ironclad part of his biography. But it is, in fact, an invention.’’

Inventive in TV shows and movies, Mr. Stang had a distinctive voice, affecting a pronounced lisp for some roles. And though he could hold his own on television or in films with Berle, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, and Buddy Hackett, his tastes might have surprised those who followed his career.

When his son was a child, Mr. Stang took him to see films at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, and his acting hero was Ralph Richardson, the British actor who initially made his name on the stage in classic roles with the likes of Laurence Olivier.

“He was just an uncommon man,’’ said his wife, who for many years wrote about the arts for The New York Times. “And he was very hard-working, very dedicated to his career. But the most important thing in his life was his family. He often had to travel to California to work, and he’d always be on the red-eye home. The minute he got out of the studio, he was on his way to his airport.’’

Mr. Stang was a child when he began acting on the radio, and he soon progressed to movies. His entries posted on the Internet Movie Database website, which chronicles film and TV roles of actors and actresses, range from 1942 to 2002.

“He did films, he did television, and he was active in the theater,’’ his wife said. “He did a lot of summer stock all over the country. And of course he did animated films and commercials.’’

Radio was Mr. Stang’s entry point into the acting world, and he returned to it in 1997 with Boston radio host Jess Cain and a cast of guest stars before a live audience in a “Radio Classics Live’’ show at Massasoit Community College’s Buckley Performing Arts Center in Brockton.

“Radio requires imagination on the part of both the performer and the listener, and it’s become a lost art,’’ Mr. Stang told the Globe in 1997. “It’s nice to feel that human relationship with a live audience.’’

For older TV viewers and those with a taste for the earlier days of television comedy, Mr. Stang’s most memorable role was Francis, the stagehand who put Berle in his place in the 1950s.

“Stang’s face and voice are unmistakable,’’ Berle told The New York Times for a feature on Mr. Stang published in January 2000. “But he has been unheralded as a performer. Like many superb character actors, he has never been properly acclaimed for his talent.’’

“Other people find what I do amusing,’’ Mr. Stang told the Times in 2000. “I approach every part, comedic or otherwise, as a dramatic role. My preparation is always serious. In my early years in radio, I discovered comedy was more lucrative for me. But I played sensitive characters and menacing murderers, too.’’

To accommodate his work, Mr. Stang and his family lived near New York City, in Connecticut and New York, for many years, and also lived for a time in California. The Stangs resided in New Canaan, Conn., for nearly 20 years before moving to Needham.

Mr. Stang met JoAnne Taggart through a mutual friend and they married 60 years ago. She said he never officially retired and continued to act in commercials occasionally, even in recent years.

“His attitude was, ‘Well, I have a free day, why not?’ He was extremely practical about his career,’’ she said. “He just went in every time and tried to do his very professional best. He wasn’t casual about it: He was very serious about the smallest commercial.’’

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Stang leaves a daughter, Deborah of Brighton, and two grandchildren.

Services will be private.