LOS ANGELES: Whether he played a small-town sheriff, a murder-solving priest or the father of 1950s teens in “Happy Days,” the show that made him famous, Tom Bosley was a warm and comforting presence on TV sets in America and around the world . Bosley, best known as the often flustered but always fatherly Howard Cunningham on “Happy Days,” died Tuesday in Palm Springs. He was 83. He died suffering heart failure at a hospital, his agent Sheryl Abrams said. He had also had lung cancer. His death brought fond remembrances of the nostalgic ABC show, which ran from 1974 to 1984. On Saturday, American TV viewers lost another surrogate parent, Barbara Billingsley, who portrayed June Cleaver in “Leave It To Beaver.” Both shows showcased life in the 1950s - before Vietnam, Watergate and other tumultuous events of the ‘60s and ‘70s that rocked the US “Kids were watching their parents grow up, and parents were watching themselves grow up. And that was the key to success of that show,” Bosley said in a 2000 interview. Bosley initially turned down the role. “I changed my mind because of a scene between Howard Cunningham and Richie,” he said in 1986. “The father-son situation was written so movingly, I fell in love with the project.” Viewers did too. “Happy Days,” which debuted in 1974, slowly built to hit status, becoming US television's top-rated series by its third season. TV Guide ranked Bosley's Howard Cunningham character at No. 9 on its list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time” in 2004.
