Photograph of Soupy Sales at the Friars Club, with Pat Cooper (right), Stuart Ramson/AP
His memoir "Soupy Sez"(M. Evans, 2001), written with Charles Salzberg, supplied the precise ingredients for successful pie-throwing: "You can use whipped cream, egg whites or shaving cream, but shaving cream is much better because it doesn't spoil. And no tin plates. The secret is you just can't push it and shove it in somebody's face. It has to be done with a pie that has a lot of crust so that it breaks up into a thousand pieces when it hits you."
According to the NY Times, Soupy was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, N.C. His last name was pronounced "Soupman" by neighbors, so he called himself Soupy as a youngster. Mr. Sales was later a longtime panelist on TV's "What's My Line," a host for a variety talk show on WNBC Radio in the 1980s, worked with Howard Stern and a behind the scenes pioneer for jazz on television in the 1960s.
Here's a montage of some Soupy-gets-pied scenes:
My favorite Soupy Sales line was his asking a bunch of kids on his afternoon show:
"OK, kids, what word begins with F and ends in UCK.
Dead silence.
"That's right, kids. Firetruck."
Could you imagine a children's TV show today with a character named Philo Kvetch?
RIP Soupy, you were a part of my childhood (along with Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, Laugh-In, etc.)
hopefully his death is not a sign that the Yankees' pie throwing is over for the season...