Here's a memory of Larry that keeps popping back into my head today. Back in 1996, there was a special event at the Writers Guild — a gathering of most of the major writers who'd written for Sid Caesar — Neil and Danny Simon, Mel Brooks, Mel Tolkin, Aaron Ruben, Sheldon Keller, Gary Belkin and Larry. Sid was on the panel, as was Carl Reiner, and my pal Bob Claster was the host/interviewer. It was a very nice evening that was taped and broadcast later on PBS. Caesar's Writers, they called it.
Before the event, some of us had dinner at a restaurant across the street and I got to sit in at a table with several of the above folks. At one point, they were talking about stage shows in New York and I don't remember how it was relevant but Carl Reiner said, "Milton Berle was at the Paramount Theater."
And without missing a beat, Larry Gelbart added, "Yeah...and his cock was at the Bijou."
The L.A. Times archives contain many clippings by and about Larry Gelbart. If you're interested in the man and his work, you'll want to take a gander at these.
And if you feel like watching three and a half hours of Larry being interviewed, you'll want to go to this page.
There are many things that should be said about Larry Gelbart, who has just been taken from us by cancer at the age of 81. One is that he was funny. He was funny on the screen. He was funny on the page. He was funny when you spoke with him in person. Every time I talked with him, he said one of those things that makes you think, "I wish I'd said that...and if it's at all possible, I will."
He was also funny at age 81. He still had it. Which is one of the reasons why he still worked as much as he wanted to...and maybe even a little bit more than that.
He was a role model. In this line of work, you often have to ask yourself, one way or the other, "Who's career would I like?" Among folks who write comedy, I'd guess the number one answer the last few decades has been Larry Gelbart.
He was also a tireless fighter, not only on behalf of his own interests but those of writers everywhere. He was active in the Writers Guild...and I have to tell you, it was not comfy to find yourself, as I did once in a while, on the opposite side of an issue from him. He was, after all, Larry Gelbart — a man with impeccable credentials and a withering way with a quip. His very presence among the opposition made you think maybe you were wrong. But he was (almost) always a gentleman.
He was a solid, serious Liberal Democrat and I'm glad he got to live long enough to see the last election.
Obits like this one will give you his major credits but he had hundreds of minor ones or unknown ones, and they're all interesting. Every one of them. The worst thing of his I ever saw was a movie called Blame it on Rio, and even that has some moments worthy of the name of Gelbart. (I never saw Neighbors, a film he told everyone he wished he'd taken his name off. A producer at Sony once told me that among his dream projects was to remake that film, following Larry's screenplay exactly.)
He was enormously nice to me whenever our lives crossed. I think everyone who ever met him would say something of the sort unless they were an inept network exec, studio head or a director or writer who wanted to change his words. There's a lot of autobiography at work in his Broadway hit, City of Angels, which is about a novelist trying to preserve his artistic integrity in the movie business.
Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the music for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, believes that the book (by Burt Shevelove and Larry) is the best farce comedy ever written on this planet. He's probably right about that.
I'll probably think of other things that should be said. As you can tell, this was a very important, talented man and he meant a lot to a lot of people.
One of the all-time great comedy writers and wits has left us. He worked for Sid Caesar. He co-authored A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He wrote the book for many Broadway shows including City of Angels. He developed, produced and wrote the TV series, M*A*S*H. He wrote or co-wrote funny movies like Oh God, Movie Movie and Tootsie. He was a major force in the Writers Guild and a friend, mentor and role model to so many.
I'll have more thoughts about Larry later. I'm just thinking that if they have a memorial service and people get up there and start quoting funny things the man said, we're going to be there for a month.
I briefly felt like I should try to write something profound here about this anniversary...but scanning the web, I don't see that anyone else has. We're all pretty much on the same page that it was a tragedy and here and there, I sense a certain sensation of loss that it doesn't chill us today the same way it did then. But then again, it's not supposed to. Back then, we were saying that things would never be the same again and we meant it in a different way than you get from the normal passing of time. I don't know about you but it feels to me like things got a lot closer to "the same" than I expected, a lot sooner than I expected. Few of us think about 9/11 except on anniversaries like this, when there are important (we think) political points to make or when we're at the airport and being forced to take off our shoes.
I'm not sure that's altogether a bad thing. The greatest damage of that day was, of course, the loss of human life followed by two things, and I'm not sure which is second and which is third. One was the destruction of property and damage to the economy. The other was to scare the hell out of us and make up panic and operate out of fear. The monetary devastation can never be undone but I don't think we've done a bad job of moving past the other thing.
It probably won't surprise you that June Foray was the voice in the talking Chatty Cathy dolls that the Mattel folks brought out in 1959. There was a time when June Foray was the voice of everything female and even a few males, like Rocket J. Squirrel. Anyway, June recorded the tracks for the erudite plaything and that led to her supplying much the same voice for Talking Tina, a sinister doll that appeared in a famous episode of The Twilight Zone. She was great in the role. She's been great in everything...and she continues to be great in everything.
This item is to remind you that you can still order her autobiography and get a copy signed to you by The Legend herself. This offer may not be available for very long so if I were you, I'd order one today. Heck, I'd order several. You've loved this woman's work all your life. You're going to love her book.
The player below should run three clips in a row — excerpts from an interview that Frank Rich did in San Francisco in March of '08 with Stephen Sondheim. The video's the wrong size for the frame but the audio's pretty good and that's what matters. Rich did a number of these conversations with Sondheim (I saw one at UCLA) and tapes abound. They're quite interesting but I find myself wishing that the inquisitor had been someone who'd be a bit more challenging and not so willing to prompt Sondheim for anecdotes that the composer wished to tell. Still, the ones he wished to tell are pretty interesting...
September 12, 2009
