There are many things that should be said about Larry Gelbart, who has just been taken from us by cancer at the age of 81. One is that he was funny. He was funny on the screen. He was funny on the page. He was funny when you spoke with him in person. Every time I talked with him, he said one of those things that makes you think, "I wish I'd said that…and if it's at all possible, I will."
He was also funny at age 81. He still had it. Which is one of the reasons why he still worked as much as he wanted to…and maybe even a little bit more than that.
He was a role model. In this line of work, you often have to ask yourself, one way or the other, "Who's career would I like?" Among folks who write comedy, I'd guess the number one answer the last few decades has been Larry Gelbart.
He was also a tireless fighter, not only on behalf of his own interests but those of writers everywhere. He was active in the Writers Guild…and I have to tell you, it was not comfy to find yourself, as I did once in a while, on the opposite side of an issue from him. He was, after all, Larry Gelbart — a man with impeccable credentials and a withering way with a quip. His very presence among the opposition made you think maybe you were wrong. But he was (almost) always a gentleman.
He was a solid, serious Liberal Democrat and I'm glad he got to live long enough to see the last election.
Obits like this one will give you his major credits but he had hundreds of minor ones or unknown ones, and they're all interesting. Every one of them. The worst thing of his I ever saw was a movie called Blame it on Rio, and even that has some moments worthy of the name of Gelbart. (I never saw Neighbors, a film he told everyone he wished he'd taken his name off. A producer at Sony once told me that among his dream projects was to remake that film, following Larry's screenplay exactly.)
He was enormously nice to me whenever our lives crossed. I think everyone who ever met him would say something of the sort unless they were an inept network exec, studio head or a director or writer who wanted to change his words. There's a lot of autobiography at work in his Broadway hit, City of Angels, which is about a novelist trying to preserve his artistic integrity in the movie business.
Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the music for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, believes that the book (by Burt Shevelove and Larry) is the best farce comedy ever written on this planet. He's probably right about that.
I'll probably think of other things that should be said. As you can tell, this was a very important, talented man and he meant a lot to a lot of people.