{"id":2226772,"date":"2026-01-08T08:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2226772"},"modified":"2026-01-08T08:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:13:09","slug":"tv-legend-dies-just-months-after-famous-wife-as-tributes-pour-in-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/tv-legend-dies-just-months-after-famous-wife-as-tributes-pour-in-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"TV legend dies just months after famous wife as tributes pour in | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

TV icon Andy Friendly, programming executive at CNBC and King World, has sadly died<\/a> at the age of 74 \u2013\u00a0just months after his famous wife. Andy was the son of CBS<\/a> star Fred Friendly, best known for producing Entertainment Tonight, and was married to NBC<\/a>‘s Please Don\u2019t Eat the Daisies star Patricia Crowley for 39 years.<\/p>\n

Andy died at his Bel-Air home on Sunday (January 4), his brother David confirmed, though no cause of death has been given. A statement from Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav said of the star: \u201cAndy was a brilliant producer and an exceptional leader who helped define CNBC during a pivotal period of growth and creativity.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had an extraordinary ability to spot talent, nurture ideas and bring out the very best in the people around him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cBut beyond his professional accomplishments, Andy was a special person and a dear and loyal friend. He led with generosity, humour and heart, and he cared very deeply about people.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndy made everyone feel valued, and his unique kindness and integrity will be remembered, just as powerfully as his creative legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy\u2019s wife Patricia \u2013 who also starred in everything from Forever Female alongside Ginger Rogers and the 1960 flick Key Witness \u2013 died aged 91 in September 2025.<\/p>\n

She passed away from natural causes in Los Angeles<\/a>, her son confirmed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Patricia\u2019s children \u2013 son Jon and daughter Ann \u2013 came from her first marriage to Ed Hookstratten, from whom she separated in the 1980s. She tied the knot with Andy in 1986.<\/p>\n

Tributes have flooded in for Andy on social media, with one fan writing: \u201cAnother legend who built the blueprint. Respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe helped shape modern entertainment news, his impact on the industry will be felt long after him,\u201d someone else agreed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TV icon Andy Friendly, programming executive at CNBC and King World, has sadly died at the age of 74 \u2013\u00a0just months after his famous wife. Andy was the son of CBS star Fred Friendly, best known for producing Entertainment Tonight, and was married to NBC‘s Please Don\u2019t Eat the Daisies star Patricia Crowley for 39 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2226773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[372755,430772,430771,390500,22062,430773,24075,372747,372929,309660],"class_list":["post-2226772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-andy-friendly","tag-andy-friendly-cause-of-death","tag-andy-friendly-dead","tag-celeb-deaths","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-cnbc","tag-nbc","tag-pat-crowley","tag-patricia-crowley","tag-tv-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/TV-legend-dies-just-months-after-famous-wife-as-tributes.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2226772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2226774,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226772\/revisions\/2226774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2226773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2226772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2226772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2226772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}