Emmy Awardee Comedian & Former PokerStars Brand Ambassador Louie Anderson Passes Away at 68

Louie Anderson
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  • Namita Ghosh January 22, 2022
  • 2 Minutes Read

A man adept at holding an audience and keeping it enthralled, the talented comedian and a former PokerStars brand ambassador, Louie Anderson (cover image), died aged 68, after losing a long battle to cancer.

Anderson was suffering from diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most prevalent kind of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and breathed his last at a Las Vegas hospital when he was receiving treatment.

Anderson’s publicist, Glenn Schwartz, broke the news on Friday. Schwartz said – “He is survived by his two sisters, Lisa and Shanna Anderson. Cause of death was complications from cancer.”

 

A Comedian with a Penchant For Poker

Louie Anderson is a name that needs no introduction. He performed a stand-up comedy act called “Louie: Larger Than Life” in Las Vegas for decades and made his national TV debut in 1984 with The Tonight Show.

Louie Anderson
Louie Anderson

 

In 2016, Anderson won the 2016 Primetime Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series’ for his role in FX’s Baskets. Over time, Anderson established himself as one of America’s most popular comedians and was even named “One of the 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians of All Time” by Comedy Central.

Anderson was also a bestselling author and wrote four volumes, the most recent of them, “Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother, But You Can Read Them Too,” was published in 2018.

But few people know Anderson was also a good hand at poker. The Vegas resident briefly represented PokerStars in the mid-2000s and was spotted sporting the Red Spade patch while playing the 2006 WSOP Main Event. Anderson couldn`t cash in the event and had just one live tournament score to his name worth $11,225 earned for a runner-up finish in the Roughrider Poker Tour – Montana Fall Poker Classic, Billings, in October last year.

Remembering Anderson in a Blog post, poker author Nolan Dalla who once worked with PokerStars, wrote, “When I worked with PokerStars, we signed Mr. Anderson to be one of the website’s ambassadors (Dan Goldman was the real brains behind the deal). He absolutely loved playing poker…Mr. Anderson attended poker events, signed autographs, told jokes, but he really just wanted to be a regular guy at the table. Of course, that was next to impossible. Everyone instantly recognized Louis Anderson as a national figure from Family Feud, which was watched daily by 10 million viewers.”

Anderson was also a regular fixture at numerous charity poker events in Las Vegas. In 2010, he attended the fourth annual Jennifer Harman Charity Tournament that supported the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

He even shared his love for poker in a gambling story he shared on Opie Radio.

With his death, the poker community and his fans the world over have lost a jolly soul.

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