Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Morey Amsterdam, the comic actor best known as the wisecracking television writer on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” died of a heart attack Monday. He was in his 80s.

Amsterdam suffered a heart attack at home and died at Cedars Sinai Hospital early Monday.

Born in Chicago, Amsterdam started in vaudeville and performed in nightclubs before doing radio in the 1930s. In the late 1940s, he moved to television.

In the 1960s hit sitcom, “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” Amsterdam played Buddy Sorrell, part of a television writing team that included Dick Van Dyke and Rose Marie.

“There was something ageless with him. Probably 100,000 jokes in his head went with him,” said Dick Van Dyke.

“He was just a very dear sweet man,” said Rose Marie, who played Sally Rogers. “He knew every joke, he knew every switch on every joke. His mind was the greatest mind that ever happened.”

Various Hollywood books listed his birthday as Dec. 14 in 1912 or 1914, making him 83 or 81. Rose Marie said he was 87.

Rose Marie met Amsterdam when she was 11 during the musical variety show the “Alice Pearce Show.” The pair remained friends. They recently did a spot for the TV show “Caroline in the City,” she said.

Amsterdam’s father, a member of the San Francisco Symphony, wanted him to be a concert musician. Instead, he used his cello in his comedy routines.

His first TV appearance was “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One,” in 1948. That same year he was host of his own variety show, “The Morey Amsterdam Show,” which ran until 1950. Then he was the host for the talk show “Broadway Open House,” the precursor to NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”