Larry Geblart dies at 81

Tributes have been paid to Larry Gelbart, creator of the M*A*S*H sitcom, who died on Friday at his Beverly Hills home.

The writer, who had been suffering from cancer, was 81.

Mel Brooks – who worked with Gelbart in the writers’ room of Fifties comedy show Your Show Of Shows – called his colleague ‘the fastest of the fast, the wittiest man in the business,’ adding that he ‘was always generous with his laughter, even in such a competitive situation. If I came up with something funny - and I must admit I often did -- he was the first one to laugh, and really loud. ‘

Director Carl Reiner said Gelbart’s death was ‘a great, great, great, great, great, great loss. You can’t put enough “greats” in front of it. He had the ability to make an elaborate joke given nothing but one line.’

Writer Steve Young added: ‘Larry had the timing and performance of a great stand-up. I will miss his writing, but most of all I will miss him. A good guy with a brilliant sense of humor and great human compassion.’

As well as M*A*S*H, Gelbart wrote the Broadway comedy A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum with Stephen Sondheim and the movie Tootsie. He was said to have clashed with star Dustin Hoffman on the set, prompting him to comment: ‘Never work with an Oscar winner who is shorter than the statue.’

Gelbart wrote the pilot for M*A*S*H, in 1972, two years after Robert Altman’s movie adaptation of Robert Hooker’s bestselling book. Its skeptical tone and dark subject matter, set in a bloody field hospital in the Korean war, meant it was considered an unlikely hit for TV – but Gelbart didn’t flinch from difficult subjects creating, for example, an episode in which a bigoted sergeant insists on right ‘coloured’ blood.

Gelbart worked on dozens of episodes, but quit when the sitcom was at the peak of its popularity, because he felt he could no longer deliver the quality he wanted. For his final episode, in 1976, he constructed the show as a series of black and white interviews with the characters, as if it was documentary.

He leaves a wife, Patricia. When asked to specify what kind of cancer her husband was suffering from, she said: ‘Just the lethal kind.’

Published: 13 Sep 2009