Art Metrano, actor and comedian once shot down by accident, dies at 84

Art Metrano, a comedian and actor who has appeared in more than 120 TV shows and films, including Police Academy films, before a fall from a ladder seriously injured him, an ordeal he turned into a one-man show he performed across the country, died Sept. 8 at his home in Aventura, Florida. He was 84 years old.

His son Harry has confirmed his death. The cause was not given.

Mr. Metrono first attracted attention with an act of spoof magic. Presented as the Amazing Metrono or with an equally grandiose name, it would go out and perform a series of tricks that weren’t really tricks. He presented each hand to the audience, index finger raised, then clapped his hands behind his back and presented them again now, two fingers of one hand would be up, neither of the other.

The schtick earned him appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and other shows in the early 1970s. By this time he was also building an acting career, having landed small roles on Mannix, Bewitched and other series in the late 1960s; that run continued into the ’70s with Barney Miller, Movin On, Starsky and Hutch and dozens of other shows.

The 1980s brought more acting work, including a recurring role in Joanie Loves Chachi and, in 1985, a role in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, a sequel to the 1984 hit comedy. Mauser, a career officer who becomes a captain and is the subject of jokes; in a scene, he washes his hair with epoxy resin. He reprized the role in 1986 in Police Academy 3: Back in Training.

But Mr. Metranos’ career was cut short one day in September 1989. He and his wife at the time had put a house up for sale, and he stopped to check before a real estate agent visited. They had done some work on the pool, and he noticed that as a result there was gray cement sprayed all over the back walls and the balcony. He decided to sprinkle the filth.

I grabbed the ladder that was leaning against the wall and leaned it firmly against the balcony, he writes in a memoir, Twice Blessed (with Cynthia Lee, 1994, later renamed Metranos Accidental Comedy).

Something went wrong and Mr. Metrano fell off the ladder, hitting the ground headfirst and breaking his neck. He couldn’t move. He was lying there, imagining the scene if he was still lying there when the real estate agent showed up.

I looked up and said, hello, I’m the owner, he wrote in his book. I just broke my neck, but don’t worry. The house looks good, eh? Beautiful gourmet cuisine!

The humor was characteristic of how he later told the story in print and on stage (a neighbor eventually came to his aid before the realtor arrived), but the injury was serious. He had broken several vertebrae, and permanent paralysis was a possibility.

When you lie paralyzed in a hospital bed, he said during the show, your past becomes your constant companion as your future is a question mark.

At first he couldn’t move or speak, but eventually he was able to speak again, and walk, sometimes using a crutch. A few years later, he told his story in a one-man show written with Ms. Lee which was performed, under various names, across the country.

When he performed in Manhattan in 1996 at the Union Square Theater under the title The Amazing Metrano: An Accidental Comedy, Vincent Canby, in the New York Times, said that Mr. Metrano gives new meaning to the term stand-up comedy. : it’s not the comedy that surprises, but the fact that Mr. Metrano gets up.

The Amazing Metrono is therapeutic and inspiring theater, wrote Canby. Mr. Metrano is now working on his trauma publicly, finding resources within himself that he never knew he possessed.

Arthur Mesistrano was born September 22, 1936 in Brooklyn and grew up in the Bensonhurst section of that borough. Her father, Aaron, worked in the garment industry and her mother, Rebecca (Russo) Mesistrano, was a housewife.

He played football at Lafayette High School in Brooklyn and attended College of the Pacific in California on a football scholarship, but left college to return to New York to study theater and work on his stand-up comedy. up. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career in 1958.

In his book, he recounted trying to break into show business by taking a job selling a phone system that allowed busy people to dial speed dials; which brought him on studio lots.

That was the plan, he wrote, to sell the product, make money, meet producers and directors, then show them my glossy, bogus 8×10 CV.

It seemed to work, because in 1960 he was getting small roles. In 1971, he landed a starring role on a CBS sitcom, The Chicago Teddy Bears, although the series was short-lived. He had another starring role on a 1986 sitcom, Tough Cookies, but that show didn’t last either.

After his accident, he went on to secure occasional television roles, including in LA Law, The District, and Party of Five.

Mr. Metrono married Rebecca Chute in 1972; they divorced in 2005. His survivors include his wife, Jamie Golder Metrano; two children from his first marriage, Harry and Zoe Bella Metrano; a daughter from a previous relationship, Roxanne Elena Metrano; and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

In 1977, Mr. Metrano reached out to a son he fathered when he was younger but who had been given up for adoption. This son, Howard Bald, now a rabbi, performed a memorial service for him this weekend in Florida.