Marshall Brickman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who wrote some of Woody Allen ’s best films, the Broadway musical Jersey Boys and a number of Johnny Carson’s most beloved sketches, has died aged 85.
Brickman died Friday in Manhattan, his daughter Sophie Brickman told the New York Times. No cause of death was given.
The screenwriter was best known for his collaboration with Allen, beginning with the 1973 film Sleeper. Together they wrote Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979) and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). The loosely structured script for Annie Hall was the voted funniest screenplay ever written in 2015 by the Writers Guild of America. It won Brickman and Allen an Oscar for best original screenplay.
In his solo acceptance speech – Allen skipped the ceremony – Brickman referenced one of the film’s many oft-quoted lines, saying: “I’ve been out here a week, and I still have guilt when I make a right turn on a red light.”
Allen told the New York Times on Sunday that, other than his collaboration with Douglas McGrath on Bullets Over Broadway, he could not remember writing a movie screenplay with anyone else.
“Those were special days for me,” Allen said. “Writing films by myself is a much more spartan kind of thing. I’m alone.”
He added: “There are many people making a living from comedy, but really authentically funny people, there aren’t a lot of them. I felt Marshall was an authentically funny person — a wonderful wit. He stood out from the crowd.”
Brickman and Allen met in the early 1960s when Allen was breaking through as a standup comedian. Brickman was brought on to write jokes for him. At the time, he had been playing banjo for the folk group the Tarriers. In one of the many twists of Brickman’s career, it was an album he and his college roommate, Eric Weissberg, recorded that later made the soundtrack to 1972’s Deliverance, including Dueling Banjos.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1939, Brickman was the son of Jewish socialists Abram, who fled Poland during the second world war, and Pauline (Wolin) Brickman, who was from New York. They moved to Brooklyn, where Brickman grew up. His start in show business, after graduating from the University of Wisconsin with degrees in science and music, came with the Tarriers. He replaced Alan Arkin in 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 told 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 could divine answers to unseen questions. Brickman’s other TV stints included Candid Camera, The Dick Cavett Show and The Muppet Show.
“My life,” Brickman told the Guardian in 2021, “is no example of how to plan a creative life whatsoever. My only philosophy is that I pick projects where I don’t mind having lunch with the people.”
When Brickman and Allen began writing together, they found a natural chemistry, with Brickman playing a supporting role to Allen’s semi-autobiographical material.
“We didn’t write scenes together,” Brickman told the Writers Guild. “I think that’s the death for any collaboration.
“I don’t think there’s any such thing really as an equal collaboration. I think that in any collaboration, one person, one personality, one point of view has to dominate.”
Brickman wrote and directed the 1980 film Simon, starring Arkin as a psychology professor brainwashed into believing he’s from outer space. He also directed 1983’s Lovesick, with Alec Guinness as the ghost of Sigmund Freud, and 1986’s The Manhattan Project, about a high schooler who builds a nuclear weapon for a school project.
With Rick Elice penning the music, Brickman wrote the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, about the 1960s rock group the Four Seasons. It ran on Broadway for 12 years beginning in 2005. He and Elice also wrote the 2010 musical The Addams Family.
Brickman is survived by his wife, Nina, daughters Sophie and Jessica, and five grandchildren.
– Associated Press contributed to this report
