Famed comedian Norm Macdonald has reportedly died after a nine-year battle with cancer. He was 61.
“He was most proud of his comedy,” Macdonald’s longtime producing partner and friend Lori Jo Hoekstra told Deadline.com, which confirmed Macdonald’s death Tuesday with his management company Brillstein Entertainment.
“He never wanted the diagnosis to affect the way the audience or any of his loved ones saw him. Norm was a pure comic. He once wrote that ‘a joke should catch someone by surprise, it should never pander.’ He certainly never pandered. Norm will be missed terribly,” Hoekstra said.
Macdonald starred on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s, during which he anchored the show’s news satire segment “Weekend Update.”
The actor and comedian started his career as a writer on Roseanne Barr’s sitcom in 1992 before being hired by NBC as a cast member on SNL. After leaving SNL in 1998, Macdonald had his own sitcom “The Norm Show” from 1991 to 2001, Deadline noted.
Tributes to Macdonald poured in on social media on Tuesday afternoon following reports of his death.