Bronx, Oct 23 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The famous children’s comedian Soupy Sales has died. He was 83 years old. He was battling various health problems from a long time and he died in a hospital.His manager and friend Dave Usher told the media that Soupy Sales passed away at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, N.Y., where he was admitted last week.

Soupy Sales original name was Milton Supman. He began his career with a 1953 kids’ TV show in Detroit named as Soupy Sales Comics, and went on to star in both syndicated and network TV shows until his last series in 1979-80. He was an instant hit.

He was famous for having pies thrown to his face and according to his own estimate had more than 20,000 pies thrown at him in his TV career.The comic’s anything-for-a-laugh pie-throwing trick became his unique trademark, and many stars including Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine also good humouredly took one in the face on the comedian’s television show in the early 1960s.

Milton Supman was his original name and he was born on Jan. 8, 1926, in Franklinton, N.C. His family was the solitary Jewish family in town, and owned a dry-goods store that sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan, the AP reported. The family later moved to Huntington, W.Va.

His present wife Trudy Carson Sales, to whom he was married for the last 29 years, survives him. He has also got two sons from a previous marriage and four grandchildren.