1901–1963 · American radio comedian, writer and creator of Duffy's Tavern
Born Edward Poggenberg in Astoria, Queens, Gardner was an American comic actor, writer and director best remembered as the creator and star of the radio sitcom Duffy’s Tavern, playing Archie, the tavern’s manager and a fountain of malapropisms. The show ran a full decade — CBS from 1941, NBC-Blue from 1942, NBC from 1944 — ending with the broadcast of 28 December 1951, with Gardner writing and producing as well as starring, alongside writers including Abe Burrows and Larry Gelbart. He died in Los Angeles in 1963, aged 62.