| Larry Gelbart | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Larry Simon Gelbart |
| Born | April 18 1928 Chicago, Illinois |
Larry Simon Gelbart (born February 25, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois) is a prolific American comedy writer with over sixty years of credits.
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Early career
He began as a writer for Danny Thomas radio show during 1940s, and wrote for Jack Paar and Bob Hope. On 1950s television he worked for Sid Caesar on Caesar's Hour, along with other gifted comedy writers Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner. Larry Gelbart wrote the long-running Broadway farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Burt Shevelove and Stephen Sondheim in 1962, and collaborated with Shevelove on the British movie comedy, The Wrong Box.
M*A*S*H
In 1972, Gelbart returned to the United States of America, and was one of the main forces behind the creation of the television (TV) series M*A*S*H. He wrote and produced some of the series' finest episodes, and left after the fourth season.
Movies
Gelbart also wrote the screenplays to Oh, God! and Movie Movie, and in 1982 co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Tootsie. Gelbart's other Broadway credits include the musical City of Angels, which received an Edgar Award in 1990, and the Iran-contra satire Mastergate, as well as Sly Fox. In the early 1960s, he uttered the now-classic line, "If Hitler is alive, I hope he's out of town with a musical." TV credits include cable TV-movie Barbarians at the Gate. Gelbart wrote a memoir in 1997 called Laughing Matters: On Writing M*A*S*H, Tootsie, Oh, God!, and a Few Other Funny Things [1]. Gelbart is sometimes known as 'Francis Burns' in the credits. The German translation of his last name (written as "Gelbbart") means "yellow beard." Since May 2005, Gelbart has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.
