Larry Gelbart

I saw Larry Gelbart speak at a couple panels, but never met him personally. I always thought in the back of my mind I would. Now I never will.

He was unquestionably one of the top comedy writers of the last 60 years. And he was able to succeed at the highest level in more than one field. 

He started in radio and TV, a successful gag writer while still a teen. By the mid-50s he was writing, like so many other greats, for Sid Caesar. At the end of the decade, still fairly young, he was known as one of the fastest, funniest writers--and people--in show biz.
 

Then in 1962, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, which he wrote with Burt Shevelove, songs by Stephen Sondheim, opened on Broadway. It was a Tony-winning smash, and one of the most perfect farces ever created--superior, I'd say, to the works of Plautus it was based on. He and Shevelove met for years, over weekends, working to get the structure just right. (And then they had a horrible time out of town trying to make it play.) The script also manages to be funny without ever stooping to anachronism.
 

He would have other shows on Broadway, including his adaptation of Jonson's Volpone, Sly Fox, his Washington satire, Mastergate, and a book for another Tony-winning musical, City Of Angels, a knowing look at Hollywood and film noir. But most of his writing after Forum was for the screen, both big and small. 

 

He's by far best known as the creator of the TV sensation M*A*S*H. There had been a novel, and a smash movie in 1970, but Gelbart made it his. He managed to make it more than another service sitcom, but, just as important, he never let the message bury the comedy. He won an Emmy for the show and was nominated for many more. After four seasons, he left, burned out. Many date the downfall of the show from this moment.
 

In the late 70s, he turned to screenwriting, working on Oh, God! (Oscar nomination) and the underrated salute to old Hollywood, Movie Movie. He got his second Oscar nomination for being one of the many writers (and probably the most important) on the blockbuster Tootsie.
 

On those panels where I saw him, which generally included quite a few writing luminaries, he struck me as the wittiest, and the best with an impromptu gag. It seemed to just come naturally to him. Comedy requires hard work, but if it's not in your bones, it doesn't matter.