TV announcer Durward Kirby dies at 88

TAMPA, Fla. - Versatile TV funnyman Durward Kirby, who for years played second banana on "The Garry Moore Show" and for a time was co-host of "Candid Camera," has died at age 88.

Mr. Kirby died of congestive heart failure Wednesday in Fort Myers, Fla.,, his son, Randall Kirby, said yesterday.

Starting out in radio in the Midwest, the tall (6-foot-4), blond Kirby teamed up with Moore off and on for 30 years, serving as announcer and performer on Moore's early, live "The Garry Moore Show" on CBS-TV in 1950-51 and the highly successful variety show of the same name that ran from 1958-64 and 1966-67. The latter was known for making a star of Carol Burnett.

Mr. Kirby was co-host of "Candid Camera" from 1961-66. The show created by Allen Funt had at one point been a segment of "The Garry Moore Show." Mr. Kirby occasionally took part in the pranks.

Born in Covington, Ky., Mr. Kirby was at Purdue University, studying to be an aeronautical engineer, when he walked past the campus radio station one day and was waylaid to pinch-hit as an announcer.

He worked in radio in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Chicago and served in World War II before beginning his TV career in New York shortly after the war.

Mr. Kirby could be sketch actor, singer, dancer and with ease switch from slapstick to suave sales pitches for a sponsor's product. He became so well-known to TV viewers that the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons had a plot line about the search for "the Kirward Derby," which could make its wearer the smartest man in the world.

In addition to Randall, Mr. Kirby's survivors include son Dennis and three grandsons. His wife, Mary Paxton, died in 1994.