Clevelanders helping writer

Down on his luck, the comedian still cracks some one-liners.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A comedy writer credited with helping to make Cleveland the nationwide butt of jokes has returned homeless to his old hometown after years in the Hollywood limelight.
But the people Jack Hanrahan once poked fun at are trying to get him back on his feet.
The 74-year-old won an Emmy for "Rowan & amp; Martin's Laugh-In" and wrote for other popular television shows of the 1960s and 1970s, including "Get Smart" and "The Waltons."
Now, his Emmy is being held by his old landlady, along with his dentures, until he pays her for damages.
Hanrahan, who once lived in Beverly Hills and partied in Malibu mansions, arrived in Cleveland by bus from Eureka, Calif., in December. His tangled, thin hair hangs to his shoulders, and his only possessions are the clothes on his back, a bag of tobacco and rolling papers, The Plain Dealer reported.
Hanrahan was hoping to connect with relatives in Cleveland. But his state of mind and needs were too much for his family to handle, his nephew Kevin McCarthy said.
"This is my family," Hanrahan said earlier this week, opening his arms to a dozen homeless men smoking cigarettes outside a downtown shelter. "This is all the family I got."
What happened
Last fall, Hanrahan showed up at the Hollywood home of longtime friend and TV actor Jack Riley, who played Mr. Carlin on "The Bob Newhart Show."
Riley put Hanrahan up in a hotel for two weeks.
"This whole thing is a real tragedy," Riley said. "He's truly a King Lear character."
During conversations, Hanrahan, like Shakespeare's King Lear, rages at the world, then slips into the old comic routine, cracking one-liners.
"I haven't had a match since Tarzan died," he told a homeless man seeking a light for a cigarette.
When he talks about his life, he sometimes breaks down in tears.
"I just want to go home," he sobbed.
Hanrahan said he moved to Eureka, in northern California, in 1992, with his wife, who died three years ago.
They rented a home there and Hanrahan kept his hand in show business, acting in TV commercials and performing in community theater.
His ophthalmologist in Eureka, Paul Domanchuk, who has known the writer for 10 years, said Hanrahan hit the skids about a year ago.
"He was living in a beautiful little house and something just cracked," he said. "He stopped taking care of himself, he stopped paying his bills and cleaning his house."
When Hanrahan started making quips about embarrassing moments in his hometown, like the polluted Cuyahoga River catching on fire, comedians and script writers followed his lead.
"Jack and Tim Conway were blamed for the anti-Cleveland jokes," said Cleveland lawyer Wilton Sogg, who used to represent Hanrahan.
He's getting help
In spite of the teasing, Clevelanders have embraced Hanrahan after the story about the writer's plight in The Plain Dealer this week.
John DeLeva, a Cleveland landlord on the city's near West Side, offered to put up Hanrahan in an apartment rent-free. Bob Kimple of Lakewood offered to pay for dentures for the writer.
Social worker Sherrie White was able to place him with Veterans Affairs after Riley faxed Hanrahan's military service papers and identification documents to the newspaper, which turned them over to White.
"They'll work with him on placement, medical and psychological issues," White said.
When a VA official came to the shelter for Hanrahan on Thursday, White told Hanrahan it was time to go, prompting the old comic to quip, "Don't ever rush the king."
Then Hanrahan picked up his walking cane and shuffled out the door, singing, "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile ..."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.