Bob Saget, the actor and comedian who gained fame as a stand-up and actor on the sitcom Full House before becoming a staple at a series of highly lauded comedy roasts, died Saturday at the age of 65.
According to a tweet from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Saget was found unresponsive in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes after authorities responded to a call at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon. Authorities pronounced Saget dead on the scene.
“We have no information on cause of death, and detectives have found no signs of foul play or drug use in this case,” a spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “This is all the information we have for release at this time and we do not anticipate further updates. The Medical Examiner’s Office will ultimately determine cause and manner of death.”
The evening prior to his passing, Saget had played a show in Jacksonville as part of his “I Don’t Do Negative” standup tour, which he had announced last December. “Loved tonight’s show @PV_ConcertHall in Jacksonville. Appreciative audience. Thanks again to @RealTimWilkins for opening. I had no idea I did a 2 hr set tonight. I’m happily addicted again to this shit,” he wrote in his final tweet.
The evening prior to his passing, Saget had played a show in Jacksonville as part of his “I Don’t Do Negative” standup tour, which he had announced last December. “Loved tonight’s show @PV_ConcertHall in Jacksonville. Appreciative audience. Thanks again to @RealTimWilkins for opening. I had no idea I did a 2 hr set tonight. I’m happily addicted again to this shit,” he wrote in his final tweet.
Saget also helped shed his clean-cut image with a recurring appearance on the HBO series Entourage, in which he played a crude, profane, cigar-puffing version of himself. Saget’s performance on Entourage appeared to be a nod to the chasm between the actor’s actual personality and his wholesome Danny Tanner persona, a discrepancy he enjoyed playing with throughout his career. “People ask, ‘Who are you more like, the ‘Full House’ guy, or the guy on ‘Entourage.’” I’m somewhere in between,” he told NJ.com in 2013. “I’ve been in my back yard with a robe on, smoking a cigar, unshaved … but I’m not a misogynistic guy like that badass. That’s just a two-dimensional character. That’s just a character. I’m neither of those.”
Saget also was well-known for providing the voice and narration for the elder Ted Mosby in the long-running CBS series How I Met Your Mother, a role that he held from 2005 to 2014.
Although Saget enjoyed exploiting the contradiction between his real-life personality and the Danny Tanner character, he appeared to have nothing but respect for the other members of the Full House cast and the show’s legacy, appearing in multiple episodes of the franchise reboot, Netflix’s Fuller House. When he was initially cast, “people [were] going, ‘He’s such a sick bastard, it’s so funny he’s doing that part.’ But it’s a part anyone would be lucky to have if they wanted it,” he told WIllamette Week in 2016.
Saget was honored to be asked to join the reboot, reprising his role as Danny Tanner for 10 episodes. “I’d be sitting, looking at the other cast members and crying, because I’m the oldest, I’m the patriarch of the deal, and I just loved everybody so much for so long, and here we are doing this. It couldn’t be more rewarding,” he said.
Saget was also a well known director, helming the 1998 Norm MacDonald black comedy Dirty Work, which flopped at the box office but later amassed cult classic status.
