I never met the man but I have to write something about the passing of someone who directed some of my favorite plays and movies.
Gene Saks was also a pretty good actor. Obits like this one mention that he won acclaim for his role — on the stage and later in the movie — of Chuckles in Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns. He was great in the film but folks may not know this…
When that movie was being made, Saks was off on directing gigs and unavailable, so another actor — one who I believe had played Chuckles in the road company of the play — was hired and they filmed with him. The movie didn't turn out so well and there was talk of not releasing it…but Gardner, who'd written it but not directed, convinced the money guys to let him tinker with it. He worked with the editors to recut it and he went out and shot some new footage to drop in…and the change he made convinced the studio that he was improving the movie considerably.
At one point, they said to him something like, "How can we help you improve it even more?" And he said something like, "Gene Saks is available now. Give me the money to go back and reshoot all the Chuckles scenes with him!" They did and the other actor's performance was discarded. Saks was great in the picture.
His main fame, of course, came from directing movies like The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, and plays like Brighton Beach Memoirs and California Suite. He even directed some great things that weren't written by Neil Simon. Thank you, Mr. Saks, for all of them.