Larry Simon Gelbart (February 25, 1928 – September 11, 2009)[1] was an American television writer, playwright, screenwriter, director and author, most famous as a creator and producer of the television series M*A*S*H, and as co-writer of the Broadway musicals A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and City of Angels.
Biography
Early life
Gelbart was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Jewish immigrants Harry Gelbart, "a barber since his half of a childhood in Latvia,"[2] and Frieda Sturner, from what is now Dąbrowa Górnicza (Poland), who migrated to the United States. Larry Gelbart had a sister, Marcia Gelbart Walkenstein.[citation needed]
His family later moved to Los Angeles and he attended Fairfax High School. Drafted into the U.S. Army near the end of World War II, Gelbart worked for the Armed Forces Radio Service in Los Angeles.[3] Attaining the rank of sergeant, Gelbart was honorably discharged after serving 1 year and 11 days. Those last 11 days prevented Gelbart from being drafted for service during the Korean War.[4]
In 1972, Gelbart was one of the main forces behind the creation of the television series M*A*S*H, writing the pilot (for which he received a "Developed for Television by __" credit); then producing, often writing and occasionally directing the series for its first four seasons, from 1972 to 1976. M*A*S*H earned Gelbart a Peabody Award and an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and went on to considerable commercial and critical success.[citation needed]
Films
Gelbart's best known screen work is perhaps the screenplay for 1982's Tootsie, which he co-wrote with Murray Schisgal. He was nominated for an Academy Award for that script,[6] and also was Oscar-nominated for his adapted screenplay for 1977's Oh, God! starring John Denver and George Burns. On his relationship with actor Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, Gelbart is reported to have said, "Never work with an Oscar-winner who is shorter than the statue".[7] He later retracted this statement, saying it was just a joke.[citation needed]
Gelbart co-wrote the long-running Broadwaymusical farceA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Burt Shevelove and Stephen Sondheim in 1962. After the show received poor reviews and box-office returns during its previews in Washington, D.C., rewrites and restaging helped; it was a smash Broadway hit and ran for 964 performances. Its book won a Tony Award. In a 1991 published edition of the musical, Gelbart wrote "it remains for me the best piece of work I've been lucky enough to see my name on." A film version starring Zero Mostel and directed by Richard Lester, was released in 1966. Gelbart was critical of the movie, as most of his and Shevelove's libretto was largely rewritten.
Gelbart was diagnosed with cancer in June and died at his Beverly Hills home on September 11, 2009, aged 81. His wife of 53 years, Pat Gelbart, said that after being married for so long, "we finished each other's sentences." She declined to specify the type of cancer he had.[1][12] He was interred at the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.[13]
^ abGelbart, Larry (1998). Laughing Matters: On Writing MASH, Tootsie, Oh, God!, and a Few Other Funny Things. New York: Random House. ISBN0-679-42945-X.
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