Noting the loss of two fine comedy writers…
Mort Lachman, who logged 28 years in the service of Mr. Robert Hope, and who also wrote for Red Skelton, All in the Family and many other venues, died Tuesday, only days before what would have been his 91st birthday. I only met Mort briefly once, early in my career, but he was a pretty potent source of inspiration in the business. Among other notable achievements, he was a writer of one-line jokes who turned into a writer of situation comedies and screenplays. Not everyone who tried to make that transitition managed it but Mort did. Here's an obit that will tell you more about the man.
And Frank Ferrante informs me of the (apparently) unpublicized loss of Robert Fisher last September. Fisher was a prolific writer of radio shows, TV programs, plays and screenplays, often in collaboration with his partner, Arthur Marx. Together, they wrote the hit Broadway play, The Impossible Years, and two shows about Arthur's family — Groucho: A Life in Revue (in which Mr. Ferrante starred) and the book for the musical, Minnie's Boys. Their other credits parallel Mort Lachman's, working on All in the Family and writing movies for Bob Hope. I met Mr. Fisher when he and Arthur were story editors, as they were for a long time, on the TV series, Alice. Nice, funny man. I don't know why his death has gone unnoted.