Nfl/LIEBB, via Associated Press
Alex Karras in 1968 as a member of the Detroit Lions.
Alex Karras, a fierce and relentless All-Pro lineman for the Detroit Lions whose irrepressible character frequently placed him at odds with football’s authorities but led to a second career as an actor on television and in the movies, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 77.
Warner Brothers Pictures/Photofest
Karras as the character Mongo in "Blazing Saddles," with Cleavon Little.
ABC/Photofest
Karras with Emmanuel Lewis in a publicity photo from the television series "Webster."
Karras had kidney disease, heart disease and stomach cancer, his family said in a statement announcing his death, as well as dementia. He was among the more than 3,500 former players who are suing the National Football League, in cases that have been consolidated, over the long-term damage caused by concussions and repeated hits to the head.
To those under 50, Karras may be best known as an actor. He made his film debut in 1968, playing himself in “Paper Lion,” an adaptation of George Plimpton’s book about his experience as an amateur playing quarterback for the Lions, which starred Alan Alda as Plimpton.
His rendering of his own roguish personality led to several appearances on “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson,” and in the 1970s he played numerous guest roles on series television, on shows like “McMillan & Wife,” “Love, American Style,” “M*A*S*H” and “The Odd Couple,” in which he played a comically threatening man-mountain, the jealous husband of a woman who had become friendly with Felix (Tony Randall). Perhaps most memorably, he played Mongo, a hulking subliterate outlaw who delivers a knockout punch to a horse, in the Mel Brooks Western spoof “Blazing Saddles.”
In 1975, he played George Zaharias, the husband of the champion track star and golfer Babe Didrikson Zaharias, in the television movie “Babe.” The title role was played bySusan Clark, who became his wife, and from 1983 to 1989, they starred together in the gentle sitcom “Webster,” about a retired football player who takes in a black boy (Emmanuel Lewis), the orphaned young son of a former teammate.
But Karras, at 6 feet 2 inches and 248 pounds — large then but smaller in comparison with today’s N.F.L. linemen — first earned fame as a ferocious tackle for the Lions. He anchored the defensive line for 12 seasons over 13 years, 1958 to 1970.
It was an era when the N.F.L. had abundant talent at the position; Karras’s contemporaries included the Hall of Famers Bob Lilly and Merlin Olsen. But Karras was an especially versatile pass rusher, known around the league for his combination of strength, speed and caginess. His furious approach — Plimpton described it as a “savage, bustling style of attack” — earned him the nickname the Mad Duck.
“Most defensive tackles have one move, they bull head-on,” Doug Van Horn, a New York Giants offensive lineman who had to block Karras, said in 1969. “Not Alex. There is no other tackle like him. He has inside and outside moves, a bull move where he puts his head down and runs over you, or he’ll just stutter-step you like a ballet dancer.”
Karras was named to four Pro Bowls, and he was a member of the N.F.L’s All-Decade team of the 1960s. He was not elected to the Hall of Fame, however, which has sometimes been attributed to the fact that the Lions fielded mostly undistinguished teams during his tenure. In Karras’s only playoff game, the Lions lost to the Dallas Cowboys by the unlikely score of 5-0 in 1970.
But another theory is that his unwillingness to be an obedient N.F.L. citizen — especially his antagonism toward the longtime N.F.L. commissioner Pete Rozelle — resulted in an unofficial blackballing.
Witty, brash and probably smarter than your average bear (or Lion or Packer or Giant, for that matter), Karras was, throughout his career, a thorn in the side of league authorities, speaking out against team owners in general and the Lions’ management in particular. He deplored the way players were treated like chattel on the one hand, deployed as seen fit, and children on the other, held to restrictive behavioral standards, scolded and disciplined.
His reputation as a league outlaw was cemented in 1963 when Rozelle suspended him indefinitely, along with Paul Hornung, the star running back of the Green Bay Packers, for betting on N.F.L. games, and both players missed the entire season. Hornung was immediately contrite, but Karras was angry, asserting that his half-dozen or so $50 and $100 wagers were no threat to the integrity of the game. Neither man was accused of betting against his own team, providing inside information to gamblers or giving less than his best on the field.
Later that year Karras reportedly sold his ownership share in the Lindell A.C., a Detroit bar that was frequented by athletes and, according to the Detroit police, “known hoodlums,” to convince Rozelle that he was repentant — he denied this later — and Rozelle reinstated both men after 11 months, in time for them to play in 1964. Shortly after Karras returned, an official asked him to call the pregame coin toss and Karras, with cheeky disdain, refused.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he explained, “but I’m not permitted to gamble.”
Alexander George Karras was born on July 15, 1935, in Gary, Ind., where his father, George, a Greek immigrant, was a doctor, and his mother, the former Emmeline Wilson, was a nurse. An all-state football player in high school, he attended the University of Iowa, where in 1957 he won the Outland Trophy as the outstanding interior lineman in college football. In 1958, he was drafted in the first round by the Lions.
Karras’s other film credits included roles in the raunchy comedy “Porky’s,” the suspense thriller “Against All Odds” and the gender confusion comedy “Victor/Victoria.” He spent three seasons in the broadcast booth, working with Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford on ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” and later wrote a novel, “Tuesday Night Football,” sending up his experience. He also wrote an autobiography, “Even Big Guys Cry.”
In addition to his wife, he is survived by their daughter, Katherine Karras; a sister, Nan Reisen; three brothers, Louis, Paul and Ted; five children from a previous marriage, Alex Jr., Peter, Carolyn Karras, George and Renald; and five grandchildren.
Karras named one of his sons after Plimpton, and for years he told journalists he named another after Rozelle, as a way of remembering the humbling experience of his suspension. But he put an end to that charade in an interview with Sport magazine in 1970, in which he said that though he was wrong to gamble on games, the punishment was overly harsh, and that Rozelle had used him to establish his reputation for toughness. His son Peter, he said, was named after his father-in-law.
He used to tell people, “‘Yeah, I named him after Rozelle,’ ” he told the magazine, “which is a lie ’cause I wouldn’t name anyone after that buzzard.”
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