Rip Taylor’s Cause of Death Revealed

The comedy community lost a legend last month when Rip Taylor died at age 84. The prolific game [...]

By Chris Mottram

The comedy community lost a legend last month when Rip Taylor died at age 84. The prolific game show host and actor passed away in his home in Beverly Hills. The cause of death was unknown at the time, but his certificate of death was released by TMZ and shows what led to his passing.

The immediate cause of death was congestive heart failure, but an underlying cause is listed heart disease. TMZ also reports that Taylor's ashes were spread in the ocean off the coast of Honolulu. Taylor passed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Taylor became a well known game show host starting in the '70s. He hosted The $1.98 Beauty Show, The Gong Show, Hollywood Squares and Match Game. He also made various appearances on The Tonight Show, and was an actor in dozens of films and shows, including Wayne's World 2, Jackass The Movie, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and voice work in The Addams Family cartoon in the early 90s, The Ducktales Movie and some Scooby-Doo films.

Following news of his passing, there was an outpouring of remembrances from fellow celebrities.

Taylor become well known as the "The King of Confetti" for throwing confetti during his performances. He explained in 2011 how that accidentally became his signature move.

"The jokes were dumb, and I tore the 5 by 8 cards, threw them up in the air and it became confetti," Taylor explained. "I knocked over his desk, walked up the aisle, went to Sardi's and said, 'Well, that's the end of my television career.' I went home that night. Their switchboard had lit up. They said, 'Get the guy that went crazy!' And that is how the confetti started."

He is is survived by his partner, Robert Fortney.

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