Marshall Brickman, who co-wrote ’Annie Corridor’ with Woody Allen, dies at 85

Marshall Brickman
| Picture Credit score: Mary Altaffer

Marshall Brickman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter, whose wide-ranging profession spanned a few of Woody Allen’s greatest movies, the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, and plenty of Johnny Carson’s most beloved sketches, has died. He was 85.

Brickman died Friday in Manhattan, his daughter Sophie Brickman advised The New York Instances. No explanation for loss of life was cited.

Brickman was greatest recognized for his in depth collaboration with Allen, starting with the 1973 movie Sleeper. Collectively, they co-wrote Annie Corridor (1977), Manhattan (1979), and Manhattan Homicide Thriller (1993). The loosely structured script for Annie Corridor, 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’ve been out right here per week, and I nonetheless have guilt once I make a proper activate a crimson mild.”

“If the movie is price something,” Brickman advised Self-importance Truthful in 2017, “it provides a really explicit particular picture of what it was wish to be alive in New York at the moment in that exact social-economic stratum.”

Brickman and Allen had met within the early Sixties, when Allen was breaking by way 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 Terriers. He changed Alan Arkin within the group.

“One of many causes I used to be requested to affix was as a result of they wanted any individual to entrance the group and discuss whereas all people was tuning up,” Brickman advised the Writers Guild in 2011. “And so I began to develop little jokes and routines and stuff like that.”

By the late ‘60s, Brickman was head author for Carson’s The Tonight Present. There, certainly one of his most enduring contributions have been the Carnac the Magnificent sketches, throughout which Carson performed a “mystic from the East” who may divine solutions to unseen questions. Brickman’s different TV stints included Candid Digital camera,The Dick Cavett Present, and The Muppet Present.

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 collectively. I believe that’s the loss of life 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 persona, one viewpoint has to dominate.”

Brickman wrote and directed the 1980 movie Simon, starring Arkin as a psychology professor brainwashed into believing he’s from outer area. He additionally directed 1983’s Lovesick, with Alec Guinness because the ghost of Sigmund Freud, and 1986’s The Manhattan Undertaking, a few excessive schooler who builds a nuclear weapon for a college mission.

With Rick Elice penning the music, Brickman wrote the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, concerning 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 Household.

Brickman is survived by his spouse, Nina, daughters Sophie and Jessica, and 5 grandchildren.