Anthony Clark, Stand-Up Comic and 'Yes, Dear' Star, Dies at 62

Anthony Clark, the stand-up comedian who starred as Greg Warner on the CBS sitcom Yes, Dear, has died at 62. Deadline confirmed Clark died Tuesday, with the cause of death believed to be complications from pneumonia.

Mike O'Malley, Clark's co-star for all six seasons of Yes, Dear, first shared the news on social media. "Anthony Clark died yesterday. He was a hilarious guy," O'Malley wrote. "When my wife Lisa and I were dating back in the mid-nineties, Anthony was already famous in Boston, regularly selling out comedy shows. The first time we saw him at The Comedy Connection we laughed and laughed and laughed. He was so unique — one of those comics who is laughing along with you at the absurdity of his stories and observations."

What made Clark's comedy distinctive?

O'Malley's tribute points to the mechanism: Clark laughed along with his audience. That quality, plus a stage presence rooted in a pronounced Virginia accent, carried him out of Boston's comedy clubs and onto national television.

Clark was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and came to prominence in Boston's comedy scene in the early Nineties. He belonged to a wave of emerging stand-up talent — alongside Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K. and Dave Attell — featured on Garry Shandling's 1995 Young Comedians Special.

How did 'Yes, Dear' fit his career?

After early television stints on Boston Common and Soul Man, Clark landed the role of Greg Warner on CBS's Yes, Dear in 2000. He played the straight man to his wilder brother-in-law, Jimmy, played by O'Malley. The show never won critical acclaim, but it found a mass audience: six years on CBS, from 2000 to 2006, and an even longer afterlife in syndication.

O'Malley noted the scale of the run in his post. "I was a fan before I was a friend. We spoke on the phone three weeks ago. He had us laughing loudly once again," he wrote. "Attached are some snapshots from our last episode of 'Yes Dear' which ended 20 years ago after 122 episodes. Rest in peace. Tony."

Greg Garcia, co-creator of Yes, Dear and creator of My Name Is Earl and Raising Hope, addressed Clark's comic mind in a statement to Deadline. "I've been very lucky to be friends with some of the funniest people in the world, and Anthony Clark had the most insane sense of humor of all of them," Garcia said. "The things that would come out of his mouth were so unexpected and hilarious."

What happened after the show ended?

Clark kept one more television job. He hosted the sixth season of NBC's Last Comic Standing in 2006, the same year Yes, Dear wrapped. Then he stepped away. For roughly the past two decades, Clark left the entertainment business and moved into real estate.

That exit explains why a comedian who once sold out Boston clubs and anchored a 122-episode network sitcom stayed largely out of public view until O'Malley's announcement. Clark's death closes the book on a career that bridged Nineties stand-up and the last era of broad-audience network sitcoms — and does so just as Yes, Dear marks two decades since its final episode aired.