LOS ANGELES — Norm Cros­by, the dead­pan man­gler of the Eng­lish lan­guage who thrived in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s as a tele­vi­sion, night­club and casi­no come­di­an, has died. He was 93.

Crosby’s daugh­ter-in-law, Mag­gie Cros­by, told The New York Times that the com­ic died Sat­ur­day of heart fail­ure in Los Angeles.

Ear­ly in his career, Cros­by had real­ized he need­ed a gim­mick to dif­fer­en­ti­ate him­self from the bur­geon­ing gen­er­a­tion of come­di­ans who were achiev­ing fame on the many net­work TV vari­ety shows.

“I was look­ing around for fresh ideas, and I kept hear­ing peo­ple mis­use words,” he told an inter­view­er in 1989. “So I start­ed to use it in my act.”

He called the famed baby doc­tor Ben­jamin Spock “Dr. Spook.” With straight-faced sin­cer­i­ty, he said peo­ple “should have an apa­thy for one anoth­er; they should have rap­pa­port for each oth­er.” Today’s kids, he said, “got­ta cut that umbrel­la cord and split.”

Crosby’s first steady work as a com­ic came at Blinstrub’s in his native Boston, which led to an engage­ment in the ear­ly 1960s at the pres­ti­gious Latin Quar­ter in New York.

In his wide­ly read news­pa­per col­umn, Wal­ter Winchell gave the come­di­an a rave, and offers from John­ny Car­son and oth­er TV shows and club dates poured in. Cros­by became a favorite at the major Las Vegas and Atlantic City casi­nos and played the­aters, includ­ing many times at London’s Pal­la­di­um, and con­cert halls. He also was a reg­u­lar guest on Dean Martin’s celebri­ty roasts.

Start­ing in 1978, he starred in a syn­di­cat­ed TV show, “Norm Crosby’s Com­e­dy Shop.” For many years he served as co-host with Jer­ry Lewis on the Labor Day week­end telethon for mus­cu­lar dystrophy.

As a pub­lic per­former, Cros­by thrived despite hav­ing poor hear­ing. Dur­ing World War II, he served aboard a Coast Guard sub­ma­rine chas­er, and con­cus­sion from the depth charges dam­aged his ears. He wore a hear­ing aid onstage.

“I was nev­er shy about my hear­ing loss, prob­a­bly because I got it from mil­i­tary ser­vice,” he explained in a 1993 inter­view. “I got thou­sands of let­ters from peo­ple who had said they would nev­er get a hear­ing aid but had changed their minds after they saw me being open about it.”

Cros­by was a long­time spokesman for the Bet­ter Hear­ing Insti­tute and host­ed an annu­al golf ben­e­fit for the cause. In 2009, he was among those hon­ored by the Starkey Hear­ing Foun­da­tion, which raised funds to dis­trib­ute hear­ing aids to chil­dren in need.

Nor­man Lawrence Cros­by was born in Boston in 1927. “Like most come­di­ans, I was the fun­ny kid in the fam­i­ly and in the neigh­bor­hood,” he explained in 1993. “I was always told I should entertain.”

The war inter­vened, but after his dis­charge, he saw the prac­ti­cal val­ue of a steady job over show busi­ness and enrolled at the Boston School of Art. He worked as a com­mer­cial artist and for a while ran a small adver­tis­ing agency. But he still devot­ed evenings and week­ends to hon­ing his per­form­ing skills.

In Octo­ber 2001, Cros­by appeared at a Fri­ars Club ben­e­fit hon­or­ing TV pro­duc­er Aaron Spelling, who had been ail­ing with can­cer. Instead of his usu­al word play, the come­di­an per­formed a par­o­dy of the Get­tys­burg address in which he praised Spelling.

Cros­by mar­ried Joan Crane Foley in 1966. They had two children.