Who could forget Kenickie?
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, apparently! During Sunday's Emmy Awards' "In Memoriam" montage, the late Grease star, Jeff Conaway, was missing.
The Taxi actor passed away in May at age 60. (He'd been hospitalized two weeks earlier for what was initially thought to be a prescription drug overdose, but it was later revealed that he was suffering from pneumonia and sepsis, a dangerous blood infection.) He remained in a comatose state for over two weeks until his death.)
His manager, Phil Brock, told Us Weekly shortly after his death: "As much as we hate to lose Jeff, his personal struggles are now over. We know he is in a better place. We know somewhere in heaven an angel is welcoming a 'hickie from Kenickie.'"
Conaway had begun using drugs in the mid-1980s, and by 2008, he appeared on VH1's Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew Pinsky, where he sought treatment for addictions to cocaine, painkillers and alcohol.
He frequently threatened to quit the show and refused to end his relationship with his co-dependent girlfriend, Vikki Lizzi, who also abused prescription opiates. The star had been married twice: to Rona Newton-John, sister to his Grease costar Olivia Newton-John, from 1980 to 1985; and to Michelle Conaway in 1990 (although long separated, the couple's divorce records were never unearthed).
