Larry Gelbart, the brain behind TV's M*A*S*H, the 1950s sketch comedy series Your Show of Shows and the Dustin Hoffman Oscar winner Tootsie, died of cancer on Friday, Sept. 11. He was 81.
Already an established comedy writer by the time M*A*S*H was adapted for television in 1972, Gelbart also boasted credits as an accomplished screenwriter and playwright (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum).
With M*A*S*H, Gelbart did almost the impossible: he turned a successful film into an even more successful TV series. He also made an international star out of Alan Alda, who over the show's 11 seasons became an Emmy-winning actor, writer and director.
The show, which detailed surgeons' struggles during the Korean War, debuted three years before the Vietnam War ended. Even after that conflict was over, viewers stuck with the show, which clearly resonated with the public's anti-war attitudes. He himself said, "We gave the audience permisson to feel bad. Because America was feeling pretty rotten then, we were at war with Vietnam. And once the war stopped we didn't start feeling really terrific right away, if we ever will again about that situation."
Gelbart himself left as the program's showrunner in 1976 after four seasons, having written dozens of episodes and directed a handful of others.
Gelbart stayed on as on occasional consultant through the show's finale in 1983, and created the briefly successful spinoff AfterMASH.
He was Oscar-nominated for his screenplays for the wildly successful Tootsie and Oh God! and later crafted such telefilms as Barbarians at the Gate.
Fellow Your Show of Shows writer and performer Carl Reiner called his friend's passing a great loss and said, "The mores of our time were never more dissected and discussed. He had an ability to make an elborate joke given nothing but one line."
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