DETROIT (AP) -- Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, has died.

Former manager and longtime friend Dave Usher of Detroit says Sales died Thursday night at a hospice in New York. Usher says Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week.

Sales began his TV career in Detroit, where he drew a large audience on WXYZ-TV. He move to Los Angeles in 1961.

The comic's pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine queued up to take one on the chin.

Sales also hosted a children's show and was once suspended after telling his tiny listeners to empty their mothers' purses and mail him all the pictures of the presidents.

Soupy Sales was 83.

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