For years, some of the best TV shows were written by (and sometimes produced) by the husband-and-wife team of Irma and Austin "Rocky" Kalish. Here's a very partial list of series for which they wrote one or more episodes — and usually a lot more than one: The Bob Cummings Show, Gidget, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, That Girl, F Troop, He and She, The Flying Nun, Family Affair, My Three Sons, Maude, All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, Good Times, Too Close for Comfort, The Facts of Life, Gilligan's Island and just about everything else I watched in the sixties and seventies.
Okay, I'm exaggerating a little. It seemed like they wrote everything because I was very aware of every time their names appeared in the credits. Why? Because I knew them. Rocky and Irma were the first TV writers I ever met.
They lived a block away from us when I was growing up and I occasionally played with their son Bruce, who has since written no small number of TV shows himself. I don't recall asking his parents much about their profession when my age was single digits, even though I'd already decided to make it my profession. But just the fact that I'd met human beings who wrote for TV made me acutely aware that there were such people and that made it seem more possible to become one. Later when I did, our paths crossed several times and they were gracious and funny.
Rocky especially was everything you'd want an older comedy writer to be — funny and full of great stories. He died in his sleep early Wednesday morning and as Bruce wrote on Facebook, "He squeezed every bit of life he had out of his 95 years here on this planet." Gonna miss you, Rocky. You did what you did real good and it was always a pleasure to be around you, starting back around the time I was eight.
Here's the obit posted right where an obit on Rocky Kalish belongs: In the Hollywood Reporter.