NEW YORK (AP) — The Oscar-winning screenwriter Marshall Brickman, whose wide-ranging profession spanned a few of Woody Allen ‘s greatest movies, the Broadway musical “Jersey Boys” and numerous Johnny Carson’s most beloved sketches, has died. He was 85.
Brickman died Friday in Manhattan, his daughter Sophie Brickman advised The New York Occasions. No explanation for demise was cited.
Brickman was greatest identified for his in depth collaboration with Allen, starting with the 1973 movie “Sleeper.” Collectively, they co-wrote “Annie Hall” (1977), “Manhattan” (1979) and “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993). The loosely structured script for “Annie Hall,” particularly, has been hailed as one of many wittiest comedies. It gained Brickman and Allen an Oscar for greatest unique screenplay.
In his acceptance speech (Allen skipped the ceremony), Brickman referenced one of many movie’s many oft-quoted strains, saying: “I have been out right here per week, and I nonetheless have guilt once I make a proper activate a pink gentle.”
“If the film is worth anything,” Brickman advised Vainness Honest in 2017, “it gives a very particular specific image of what it was like to be alive in New York at that time in that particular social-economic stratum.”
Brickman and Allen had met within the early Sixties, when Allen was breaking by means of as a slapstick comedian. Brickman was introduced on to write down jokes for him. On the time, he had been taking part in banjo for the people group the Tarriers. In one of many many twists of Brickman’s profession, it was an album he and his faculty roommate Eric Weissberg recorded that later made the soundtrack to 1972’s “Deliverance,” together with “Dueling Banjos.”
Brickman, born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was the son of Jewish socialists Abram (who fled Poland throughout WWII) and Pauline (Wolin) Brickman, who was from New York. They later moved to the Flatbush part of Brooklyn, the place Brickman grew up. His begin in present enterprise, after graduating from the College of Wisconsin with levels in science and music, got here with the Tarriers. He changed Alan Arkin within the group.
“One of the reasons I was asked to join was because they needed somebody to front the group and talk while everybody was tuning up,” Brickman advised the Writers Guild in 2011. “And so I started to develop little jokes and routines and stuff like that.”
By the late ‘60s, Brickman was head writer for Carson’s “The Tonight Show.” There, one of his most enduring contributions were the Carnac the Magnificent sketches, during which Carson played a “mystic from the East” who may divine solutions to unseen questions. Brickman’s different TV stints included “Candid Camera,” “The Dick Cavett Show” and “The Muppet Show.”
When Brickman and Allen started writing collectively, they discovered a pure chemistry, with Brickman taking part in a supporting position to Allen’s semi-autobiographical materials.
“We didn’t write scenes together. I think that’s the death for any collaboration,” Brickman advised the Writers Guild. “I don’t assume there’s any such factor actually as an equal collaboration. I believe that in any collaboration, one particular person, one character, one standpoint has to dominate.”
Brickman wrote and directed the 1980 movie “Simon,” starring Arkin as a psychology professor brainwashed into believing he is from outer area. He additionally directed 1983’s “Lovesick,” with Alec Guinness as the ghost of Sigmund Freud, and 1986’s “The Manhattan Project,” a couple of excessive schooler who builds a nuclear weapon for a college challenge.
With Rick Elice penning the music, Brickman wrote the Broadway musical “Jersey Boys,” in regards to the Sixties rock group The 4 Seasons. It ran on Broadway for 12 years starting in 2005. He and Elice additionally wrote the 2010 musical “The Addams Family.”
Brickman is survived by his spouse, Nina, daughters Sophie and Jessica, and 5 grandchildren.
