'Barney Miller' actor Ron Carey dies at 71 in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Ron Carey, an actor best known for his work as a cocky, height-challenged policeman on the 1970s TV comedy ``Barney Miller,'' has died. He was 71. <br/><br/>Carey died of a stroke

Sunday, January 21st 2007, 6:17 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Ron Carey, an actor best known for his work as a cocky, height-challenged policeman on the 1970s TV comedy ``Barney Miller,'' has died. He was 71.

Carey died of a stroke Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Michael Ciccolini, an extended relative and family spokesman.

Carey had a recurring role on ``Barney Miller'' from 1976 to 1982 as Officer Carl Levitt, who yearned for a promotion to detective in the New York squad room run by Capt. Barney Miller (Hal Linden).

Carey also appeared in several Mel Brooks movies, including ``High Anxiety'' and ``History of the World Part I.''

``Ron Carey was truly talented, very funny and one of the dearest men I've ever worked with,'' Brooks said in a statement.

Carey played a Boston cab driver in the 1970 Jack Lemmon comedy ``The Out of Towners.'' He also appeared in scores of commercials, and took pride in being a supporting player and a character actor.

``Stars are stars,'' he told Newsday in 1989. ``But without us, the show wouldn't go on.''

Carey was born Ronald Joseph Cicenia on Dec. 11, 1935, in Newark, N.J.

He launched his stand-up comedy career in New York after earning a bachelor's degree in communications from Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., in 1956. He made his first national television appearance a decade later on ``The Merv Griffin Show.'' Appearances on ``The Tonight Show'' and the ``Ed Sullivan Show'' followed.

Carey is survived by his wife, Sharon, and his brother, Jimmy Cicenia.