Johnny Hardwick, who voiced the chain-smoking exterminator Dale Gribble for the entire 13-season run of the Fox animated hit King of the Hill, has died. He was 64.
Hardwick’s death was confirmed Thursday by the Austin medical examiner’s office. No details were immediately available. TMZ reported he was pronounced dead at his home in Austin on Tuesday and that no foul play was suspected.
Hardwick voiced Dale — the conspiracy theorist who lives next door to his best friend, propane accessory salesman Hank Hill (co-creator Mike Judge) — from 1997-2010 and was a writer, story editor and producer on the show as well.
The animators were said to have drawn Dale to look (and smoke) just like Hardwick, and he appeared on more than 250 episodes. He shared an Emmy for outstanding animated program in 1999 and was nominated again in 2001 and ’02.
In a 2019 interview, Hardwick said he loved working on the show because he didn’t have to put on makeup or memorize lines. “I did it the whole time and was completely anonymous … that’s meant so much to me,” he said.
Hardwick was set to participate in a revival of King of the Hill at Hulu, it was announced in January. He also had a YouTube channel on which he would perform songs as Dale.
Born in Houston in 1958, John Michael Hardwick graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in journalism, worked as a stand-up at clubs in Dallas and Austin and was the first comic on Jon Stewart’s MTV show. He was offered a sitcom at NBC, but that did not work out.
King of the Hill co-creator Greg Daniels hired Hardwick for a writing job after seeing him perform at The Improv, and he went to work for him rather than taking another offer to serve as a regular on the MTV series Austin Stories.
Daniel Stern was hired to voice Dale but got into a dispute over money and was replaced by Hardwick in time for the pilot.
