Tim Kavanagh, a longtime Vermont entertainer, television host and anti-cancer advocate, died Sunday morning, a decade after he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. He was 60. Kavanagh’s death was confirmed by his wife of five years, Candy Kavanagh.
A Newport native, Kavanagh owned SAMSON Productions, a Burlington entertainment company that produced variety shows, improv-comedy murder mysteries, and television, film and stage productions. Many longtime Vermonters remember Kavanagh from the weekly TV talk show he hosted on WCAX, “Late Night Saturday,” which aired for three seasons in the late 2000s.
Local fans of “The Simpsons” have Kavanagh to thank for putting Vermont on that show’s proverbial map. When Twentieth Century Fox issued a nationwide The Simpsons Movie Hometown Movie Challenge video contest in 2007, Kavanagh wrote, directed and starred in the short live-action video, in which he portrayed Homer Simpson. It won Springfield, Vt., the right to host the film’s world premiere.
Kavanagh, who lived in South Burlington, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in May 2016, just months after he and Candy started dating. They met while working on “Late Night Saturday.” Humor became their salvation for dealing with the illness.
As Seven Days explored in a February 2019 story titled “Getting Cheeky: Tim Kavanagh and Candy Weston Use Potty Humor to Flush Rectal Cancer,” Kavanagh wrote and performed a one-man standup act called “The Shit Show.” Loaded with what Kavanagh called “self-defecating” humor, the 90-minute set raised thousands of dollars for local cancer charities and helped other cancer patients, their families and caregivers cope with the pain, suffering and indignities of the disease. Among them was fellow comedian and cancer survivor Josie Leavitt.
“Tim made cancer fun for both of us, a gift that I will never be able to repay,” Leavitt said. “He reminded me to see the humor in what was happening.”
Burlington entertainer Nichole Magoon remembers Kavanagh from her days as a student, then later work colleague, at Champlain College in the mid-2010s.
“I never left a conversation with Tim without a huge smile on my face. He brought a magnetic energy, a unique spirit to everything he did, whether it was hosting an event or even just attending a meeting,” Magoon wrote in an email. “He was always spreading joy, regardless of how he was feeling or how sick he was.”
“We loved fully and fiercely,” Candy wrote in a Facebook remembrance. “We danced almost daily, sang badly and planned every single detail of multiple family gatherings, always completely overdone to the MAX! We were Extra in every way.”
A celebration of Kavanagh’s life will be announced shortly.
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