Now, Darren McGavin, too

They happen in threes, they say. If that’s so, first came the death of Don Knotts Friday. And then came word of the death of Darren McGavin Saturday. Who’s next?

McGavin, 83, who died of natural causes in Los Angeles, is best known as TV’s “Mike Hammer” and came to mind recently when his “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” was remade, ever so briefly, this season as “Night Stalker.” He was also in the series “Riverboat” and won an Emmy playing Candice Bergen’s father in “Murphy Brown.”

And yet his most enduring role may be as the eccentric, lamp-loving father on the perennial “A Christmas Story,” the 1983 holiday movie that has lately been shown round the clock at Christmastime.

Ironically, McGavin starred opposite Don Knotts in the 1976 comedy, “No Deposit, No Return,” a film that also featured actors that had previously met their death, from David Niven to Herschel Bernardi.

Just about its only survivor is Barbara Feldon, to whom we say: watch your back, 99!