DAVID LANDER passed away on Friday at the age of 73.  He’s best-known for playing Andrew ‘Squiggy’ Squiggman on “Laverne & Shirley”.  His sidekick on the show was Lenny, who was played by Michael McKean.

David died of complications from multiple sclerosis.

He was diagnosed back in 1984, one year after “Laverne & Shirley” came to an end, but he kept it a secret until 1999 with the release of his memoir, “Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn’t Tell Nobody”.

He once said, quote,  “I was afraid that too many people didn’t know what MS was, and I wasn’t in a wheelchair, I wasn’t having cognitive problems, so I thought as long as I wasn’t showing, why tell anyone?”

He was worried that Hollywood wouldn’t hire someone with MS.  In fact, he even used to pretend he was an alcoholic to hide some of the signs of MS . . . because Hollywood would forgive alcoholism, but wasn’t cool with MS.