Alex Karras given days to live.
This does not look good, he suffered kidney failure monday night. The article says that he’s been suffering from poor health for several years.
Mongo just pawn in game of life.
No. Don’t do that, don’t do that. If you give him kidney failure you’ll just make him mad.
I blame Webster, yeah, Emmanual Lewis, 'cause he’s the antichrist.
According to TMZ, it’s over…
link here
RIP Mongo
I’ve merged two threads about Karras’ illness and passing and used Labtrash’s thread title. Also:
Santa Maria!
I remember well his playing days and being in one of the first movies I can remember, Paper Lion. Against All Odds was just on yesterday, I wonder if this is why. They seem to play a lot when some cast member comes into the news. The guy married Susan Clark, so there’s another addition to a life well lived. Sad to see he’d gone the way of many of the NFL giants with dementia, etc.
RIP to one of the great big guys… I remember him on Monday Night football… should be in the HOF!!!
Don’t think I ever laughed so hard as when he punched out that horse.
RIP
When I was in high school, I read many of George Plimpton’s books about sports – often written, as “Paper Lion” was, from the standpoint of a (temporary) participant in the sport. Karras featured hugely in the written version of “Paper Lion”, as well as the sequel, “Mad Ducks and Bears” (Karras’s nickname with the Lions, due to his waddling gait, was “The Mad Duck”)…he was absolutely hilarious, and it’s not surprising that he was able to segue so well into an acting career.
I remember him in Victor/Victoria where he played James Garner’s bodyguard.
I know that the words ‘pawn’ and ‘game’ are, well, game related. I also know that Alex played football and that, too, is a game but. . . should this thread have been moved to the outskirts of the Game Room?
It was originally posted to The Game Room and I figured it could stay there because Karras was a football player before he became an actor. There is a redirect from Cafe Society.
And here I thought I was gonna get crap for calling The Game Room the outskirts.
Sorry, I guess I had the wrong forum, and I see there was already a thread - oops!
I’m laughing now just thinking about it.
I find it very bizarre that Yahoo is calling him “former Webster star,” as though that was the pinnacle of his career.
Even considering his acting rather than his football, in addition to Mongo, there was a fine supporting turn in Victor/Victoria and Paper Lion (playing himself, but it started his movie career).
Hard to believe these days that he was such a dominant defensive tackle at around 250 pounds. At 6’3" he looked so much bigger.
I remember an anecdote from Jerry Kramer’s book Instant Replay where he talked about an incident where a rookie lineman went up against Karras who was recovering from an undisclosed injury. The rookie told the press after the game that he thought Karras was overrated, that the famously agile Karras hadn’t shown him that many moves. Come the next game, Karras was back to full strength, and was mopping the field with this poor kid. As the rookie walked off the field having been pulled by his coach, he happened to walk past Karras, who asked him, “How’d you like them moves, assface?” 
Alex Karras was great. Fast, agile and strong, mentally and physically, and a born leader, he lead a great life. RIP, Alex.
Karras was also a professional wrestler off season, and portrayed a real wrestler, George Zaharias, in the movie Babe (not the one with the pig), and a fictional wrestler in the movie Mad Bull. One of his best lines from his autobiography was about attending college where he was being paid to play football. He said something like “We called it a scholarship”. Great football player, wrestler, and actor. He will be missed by many.