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'Taxi,' 'Grease' star Jeff Conaway dies at 60

LOS ANGELES — Jeff Conaway, who starred in the sitcom "Taxi," played swaggering Kenickie in the movie musical "Grease" and publicly battled drug and alcohol addiction on "Celebrity Rehab," died Friday. He was 60.

The actor was taken off life support Thursday and died Friday morning at Encino Tarzana Medical Center, according to one of his managers, Kathryn Boole.

"It's sad that people remember his struggle with drugs. ... He has touched so many people," she said, calling Conaway a kind and intelligent man who was well read and "always so interesting to talk to. We respected him as an artist and loved him as a friend."

"He was trying so hard to get clean and sober," Boole added. "If it hadn't been for his back pain, I think he would have been able to do it."

Family members, including Conway's sisters, nieces and nephews, and his minister, were with him when he died, Boole said.

He was taken to the hospital unconscious on May 11 and placed in a medically induced coma while being treated for pneumonia and sepsis, which is blood poisoning caused by a bacterial infection.

Conaway had failed to seek medical aid, instead trying to treat himself with pain pills and cold medicine, said Phil Brock, Boole's business partner.

"He's a gentle soul with a good heart ... but he's never been able to exorcise his demons," Brock said after Conaway was hospitalized.

Conaway is the second person who appeared in the VH1 reality series "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" who later died. In March, former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, who was on the show in 2009, was found dead in Salt Lake City. The month before, police there had arrested him on suspicion of possession of medications without a required prescription.

Messages seeking comment from the show's Dr. Drew Pinsky, a physician and radio and TV personality, were not immediately returned Friday.

On his HLN network show, "Dr. Drew," Pinsky said Friday he was angry about Conaway's death, decrying what he called the ready availability of prescription opiates for a "severe drug addict" with chronic pain like Conaway.

"I told him for years it was going to kill him," Pinksy said.

What happened to Conaway is not uncommon, he said: An addict consumes too much of a drug, it enters the user's lungs and causes rapidly progressing pneumonia that he or she fails to recognize because of impairment.

There is no evidence Conaway intentionally overdosed, Pinsky said.

Conaway had acknowledged his addictive tendencies in a 1985 interview with The Associated Press, when he described turning his back on the dream of a pop music career. He'd played guitar in a 1960s band called 3 1/2 that was the opening act for groups including Herman's Hermits, The Young Rascals and The Animals.

"I thought, 'If I stay in this business, I'll be dead in a year.' There were drugs all over the place and people were doing them. I had started to do them. I realized that I'd die," Conaway told the AP.

His effort to avoid addiction failed, and his battles with cocaine and other substances were painfully shared in two stints on "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew." Conaway, who'd had repeated back surgeries for an injury, blamed his cocaine use and pain pill abuse in part on his lingering back problem.

Conaway was born in New York City on Oct. 5, 1950, to parents who were in show business. His father was an actor, producer and agent, and his mother was an actress.

He made his Broadway debut in 1960 at the

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