Vale: Jeff Conaway

US actor Jeff Conaway, best known as ‘Kenickie’ in Grease and for his role in the sitcom Taxi, has died, aged 60.

He had been found unconscious after 9 hours at home and been in a coma for two days. He is thought to have taken an overdose of prescription medication, resulting in pneumonia and sepsis, a result of numerous years on prescription medications that wore out his body.

“Jeff was taken off life support [Thursday] afternoon,” his manager, Phil Brock, told People. “His family chose to take him off of life support based on advice from physicians. They thought for several days that the situation was hopeless.”

Conaway launched his career at the age of 10 by tagging along to an audition for a Broadway show but later shot to fame in the movie adaptation of Grease, co-starring with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

Conaway was a “wonderful and decent man and we will miss him,” Travolta said in a statement. “My heartfelt thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this very difficult time.”

After Grease, he went on to become ‘Bobby Wheeler’, a struggling actor-turned-cab driver on Taxi.  He also appeared on After some early television appearances in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Kojak, Happy Days, Murder She Wrote, The Love Boat and Babylon Five.

He also appeared on VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club in 2008 and later on Celebrity Rehab, where he admitted to being addicted to cocaine, painkillers and alcohol after having back surgery.

He was also once married to the sister of Olivia Newton John.

Source: LA Times