The comic gift of Larry Gelbart (original) (raw)

November 8, 2002/Kislev 3 5763, Vol. 55, No. 11

CINDY SHER

JUF News

Thank God for Larry Gelbart. In the 1977 comedy movie "Oh, God!" written by Gelbart, God appears on Earth in human form - in the body of George Burns - to send a message to people about what He wants from them. Apparently, what God wanted from Gelbart was for him to make people laugh.

And Gelbart, a Chicago native, has been making audiences laugh for more than 50 years. He began his show biz career at 16, writing for comic geniuses including Danny Thomas, Sid Caesar, Danny Kaye and Bob Hope.

Besides writing the Oscar-nominated screenplay "Oh, God!" the Jewish comedy screenwriter is famous for such screen successes as "Tootsie," the 1982 Academy Award-nominated comedy starring Dustin Hoffman, "Barbarians at the Gate," his Emmy-winning adaptation of the 1993 HBO movie, and "M*A*S*H," the Emmy-winning television comedy-drama, about an Army hospital during the Korean War, on the air from 1972-1983. Gelbart also co-wrote the books "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (with Burt Shevelove) and "City of Angels," both Tony winners adapted for the stage.

At age 74, Gelbart continues to make people laugh today and is also trying his hand at drama. He currently is developing a family drama for the ABC network and has written a television screenplay for HBO about the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. He also has been revising his bawdy adaptation of "Lysistrata," the Aristophanes theatric comedy about Athenian women who withhold sex from their husbands to end a war.

Much of what makes a good comedy writer is genes, according to Gelbart, who now lives in Los Angeles.

He models that theory on his 5-year-old grandson, who is already tuned in to wordplay, just like his grandpa. "He's not (doing comedy) writing yet, but he can spell his name," Gelbart jokes. "Even before that, he could probably become a director."

Gelbart's parents were funny people, too, he remembers. Both of his parents immigrated to Chicago as teenagers, his mother from Poland and his father from Latvia.

His mother found work behind a sewing machine before she could even unpack. "My mother had great wit - very acidic wit - with no 'h' in front of that," Gelbart says.

His father had been an apprenticed barber back in Europe and continued to cut hair when he arrived in the States. "Jokes are really one of the barber's tools," Gelbart says. "My father knew practically every joke ever told and seemed to be on the mailing list for the new ones that came out."

One of the comedy writer's most vivid memories of growing up on Chicago's West Side is his father's barber shop, where Gelbart would watch his dad cut hair for a colorful cast of characters of businessmen, athletes, gangsters and comedians, including Danny Thomas.

Gelbart's father used to shave Thomas before his radio appearances. Legend has it that, with the razor strategically placed in hand, his father once told the comedian, "My son will be working for you tomorrow, Mr. Thomas. Right?" And that's how Gelbart got his first professional comedy-writing gig, at a mere 16 years of age.

Although Gelbart's upbringing wasn't religious - except for having a bar mitzvah and attending synagogue on High Holidays - his Jewishness has always influenced his writing. "Everything I do is tinged with the Jewish perspective as the 'outsider' in American culture, the observer ready with a caustic or witty observation when you're lucky, someone on the defensive," Gelbart notes.

Why are so many comedy writers Jewish, according to Gelbart? "Comedy is a sword and a shield and we've often needed both as a people," he says.

Unfortunately, this screenwriter doesn't watch much television these days, he says, because he is little impressed by the content of most shows.

Gelbart has found in general that screenwriting - particularly for television - has coarsened, has lost its wit, and has become victim to the "corporatization" of popular culture.

Because of corporate control over television programming, creative thinking suffers, according to Gelbart.

When he wrote "M*A*S*H," the scripted portion of the show ran just over 26 minutes on the air. Today, half-hour shows are down to about 22 minutes, while the remaining time is devoted to commercials.

"It's not farfetched to say that in a decade or so, shows will be about 50/50 - 50 minutes of show, 50 minutes of promotion," Gelbart explains. "The audience forgets how to follow a story, how to get involved in a character. They're whiplashed between a real situation and a selling situation."

With all of the downsides to screen writing today, it's a good thing audiences can still look to Gelbart for some laughs - Thank God.