Larry Gelbart, the award-winning comedy writer best known for developing the legendary TV series M*A*S*H, passed away Friday of cancer. He was 81.
The Los Angeles Times says the writer and sometime actor, who was diagnosed with cancer in June, died in his Beverly Hills home.
Tributes came pouring in for Gelbart from a who’s-who of comic talent celebrating his funny mind.
“Larry Gelbart was among the very best comedy writers ever produced in America,” said Mel Brooks, who became friends with Gelbart when they both wrote for Sid Caesar’s comedy-variety show Caesar's Hour in the 1950s. “He was a marvelous writer who could do more with words than anybody I ever met."
Woody Allen called Gelbart “the best comedy writer that I ever knew and one of the best guys.”
For a generation of TV watchers – myself and my Mom included – Gelbart is best remembered for his work on M*A*S*H, the long-running series which was based on Robert Altman’s hit 1970 movie of the same name, which was in turn based on the 1968 novel by Richard Hooker.
M*A*S*H debuted on CBS in 1972, with Gelbart serving as executive script consultant. He and writer-producer Gene Reynolds were executive producers of the show when it won an Emmy for outstanding comedy series in 1974.
The sitcom made stars out of Alan Alda, Loretta Swit and Jamie Farr, to name a few. M*A*S*H ran for 11 years, culminating in the series finale, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen." Airing on February 28, 1983, the episode was watched by nearly 106 million Americans, which established it as the most-watched episode in United States television history, a record that still stands to this day
In a statement Friday, Alda said: “Larry's genius for writing changed my life because I got to speak his lines – lines that were so good they’ll be with us for a long, long time; but his other genius – his immense talent for being good company – is a light that’s gone out and we’re all sitting here in the dark.”
Gelbart’s 60-plus year career began in radio during the Second World War when he was a 16-year-old student at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, when he wrote for radio shows starring Eddie Cantor, Joan Davis, Jack Paar, Jack Carson and Bob Hope, with whom he traveled overseas when Hope entertained the troops.
He moved into television with Hope in 1950, and spent the next few years writing for the comedian as well as for Red Buttons’ comedy-variety series.
In 1955, Gelbart joined the writing staff of Caesar's Hour, Sid Caesar’s post-Your Show of Shows TV comedy-variety series, whose writers included Neil Simon.
greg@tvguide.ca
Vote for TVGuide.ca in the Toronto Sun’s annual readers poll
Follow TV Guide Canada on Facebook