Sheldon Keller passed away Monday at the age of 85. The cause of death was complications from Alzheimer's.
Sheldon was a great comedy writer. He was great on the paper and he was great to just talk with. You think I've got a lot of funny show business anecdotes? You didn't know Sheldon. Let me tell you a couple of other things about Sheldon that don't seem to be in the online obits…
At one point early in his career, he was half of an unsuccessful comedy team with Allan Sherman. Later, when Sherman became creator-producer of the game show, I've Got A Secret, Sheldon was the first contestant on the program. His secret was "I'm wearing a girdle."
Sheldon wrote for almost every major entertainer of his day: Sinatra, Hope, Lucy, Bing, Danny Kaye, you name 'em. He wrote for The Dick Van Dyke Show and for M*A*S*H — two pretty good credits and there were plenty of others. He was one of the legendary few who wrote for Caesar's Hour, starring Sid Caesar in the show he did after Your Show of Shows. The other writers on that program included Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon and many others who, like Sheldon, went on to distinguish themselves.
He co-wrote (with Gelbart) a film called Movie Movie, which may be the funniest flick you can't currently buy on DVD. He also wrote songs, including some for Movie Movie. And he was a great musician, playing in several "celebrity" bands.
But mainly I should just tell you what a delightful, funny man he was. Always sad to lose one of those.