Marshall Brickman, who has died at the age of 85, was a successful musician, writer, and director, but three of Allen's best films, “Sleeper'' (1973), “Annie Hall'' (1977), and “Manhattan'' He will be best remembered for his collaboration with Woody Allen on . 1979). The pair won an Oscar for their original screenplay for Annie Hall, which also won Best Picture, Best Director for Allen, and Best Actress for Diane Keaton.
Allen was absent from the awards ceremony, and when Brickman accepted the Best Writer statuette, he said: “Half of this little tin, maybe more, belongs to Woody, who is probably the biggest collaborator anyone could ask for. He's done a lot of great work. He takes our scripts and passes them on to you. He has been taking my lunch check for about 5 months and today he won't leave the apartment.''
That apartment was in New York and played a big role in those movies. Brickman, like Allen, grew up in Brooklyn, but was born in Rio de Janeiro, and his father Abram, a Polish refugee, and New York-born mother Pauline (née Wallin) were leftists who returned to the United States in 1943. Abram then settled in Flatbush, where he operated an import and export business. They exposed Marshall to the political and music scenes of Greenwich Village. He learned to play folk music on banjo and guitar.
After graduating from high school at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, he entered the University of Wisconsin with the intention of studying medicine, but was influenced by his roommate and fellow New Yorker Eric Weisberg, who was also a master banjo player, and graduated with a major in science and music.
This city was a cauldron of art in postwar America. Weisberg joined the folk group The Tarriers, a comprehensive quartet that had a huge hit with Harry Belafonte's “Banana Boat Song” (Day-O). When Bob Carey left, Weisberg named Brickman as his replacement. When the Tarriers were playing at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, Allen, an up-and-coming stand-up performer, opened for them.
Brickman initially thought the tongue-in-cheek intros to the group's songs might lead to a career in comedy, and got a job writing for Candid Camera magazine, sharing an office with Joan Rivers. He began writing jokes for Rivers and Allen, but entered the music world by recording the album New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass (1963) with Weisberg. I also wrote liner notes for that album with jokes in them. He then joined the New Journeymen with John Phillips and Michelle Phillips, but left soon after. He was replaced by Denny Doherty, who was joined by Cass Elliott and they became the Mamas and the Papas.
More importantly, Brickman joined Jack Rollins, Allen's agent, and Dick Cavett, another joke writer who had landed a gig on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. He became Carson's lead writer primarily because the other writers wanted to avoid responsibility for the “Five Spots” sketches that Carson had drawn in addition to the monologues. When Cavett left to host his own talk show, Brickman went along. However, in 1972, a record he made with Weisberg was used as the soundtrack for John Boorman's film Deliverance (although the famous dueling banjos were played by Weisberg and Steve Mandel). added).
The royalties gave Brickman the opportunity to relax and sit in on day-long sessions with Allen, and they produced the script for Sleeper, although they never actually wrote any scenes together.
The fact that these are Allen's films provided structure to Brickman's writing. “Jokes are easy,” he said. “Humor comes to me so easily that I doubt it. I secrete jokes like the pancreas secretes…whatever the pancreas secretes.” Allen and Annie Hall. Like Albee Singer, Brickman preferred New York to Hollywood. Especially since he had been invited to a party at Sharon Tate's house on the night of Manson's murder, but had other commitments in Santa Monica that night.
Brickman was the lead writer on The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence (1975), which introduced a Swedish chef. After Manhattan, he wrote and directed three films, all edited by his wife, Nina Feinberg, whom he married in 1973.
In Simon (1980), a psychology professor played by Alan Arkin is brainwashed into thinking he's from outer space during an experiment by bored scientists. Brickman wrote the most Allen-like film for Peter Sellers, Lovesick (1983), which, after Sellers' death, starred Dudley Moore as Elizabeth McGovern, a psychiatrist who falls in love with a patient. Alec Guinness plays the ghost of Sigmund Freud. The Manhattan Project (1986), about high school students who build their own atomic bomb, stars John Lithgow as a cast of TV favorites, including Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City), Jill Eikenberry (L.A. Law), and John Mahoney. I am co-starring with actors who have. (Frazier).
“I choose projects where I don't mind having lunch with people,” quipped Brickman, who wrote two screenplays for director Mark Rydell in the '90s. For the Boys (1991) is a wartime version of The Sunshine Boys, in which Bette Midler and her estranged spouse James Caan reunite to entertain Korean War soldiers. It was noted by many that this character resembled (if not the storyline) the entertainer Martha Raye. Her lawsuit against the film failed.
Intersection (1994) was a remake of Claude Sauté's 1970 The Choice of Life, but Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, and Lolita Davidovich failed to elevate it above melodrama. In 1993, Brickman reunited with Allen, who was embroiled in an adoption scandal with Mia Farrow, to write Manhattan Murder Mystery. This mystery began as a false start for the Annie Hall screenplay. Diane Keaton replaced Farrow in the lead role.
Brickman's last directorial effort was the 2001 TV movie version of Christopher Duran's play Sister Mary Tells Me All, in which Keaton starred as a nun in an Americanized version of Miss Brody. did. He then changed gears and wrote a book about the Four Seasons vocal group for the musical Jersey Boys. It opened on Broadway in 2005, won four Tony Awards, and ran for 12 years. Brickman also wrote the script for the 2012 film. His career with the Tullyers helped him understand the dynamics of a quartet, and his musical talent also helped him match his words to the harmonies of the music. He followed up the book with the musical “The Addams Family” in 2010.
Brickman is survived by Nina and two daughters, Sophie and Jessica.
