A veteran character player who became a child star on stage in the early 1940s and was a familiar face in film and on television since the 1960s, Henry Gibson excelled at playing ineffectual authority figures, colorful oddballs, and "sad sacks." An original ensemble member of the landmark TV comedy variety series "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" from 1968 to 1971, he often appeared as a gentle poet clutching a daisy.Gibson won his greatest acclaim in Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975) as the haughty country-western singer Haven Hamilton who proclaims the glories of America. Gibson appeared in
