‘M-A-S-H,”Tootsie’ writer Larry Gelbart dies
By BOB THOMAS
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Larry Gelbart, the award-winning writer whose sly, sardonic wit helped create such hits as Broadway’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” the films “Tootsie” and “Oh, God!” and television’s “M-A-S-H,” is dead.
Gelbart died at his Beverly Hills home Friday morning after a long battle with cancer, said Creative Artists Agency, which represented him. He was 81.
His wife of 53 years, Pat Gelbart, told The Associated Press Friday that after being married for so long, “we finished each other’s sentences.” She declined to specify the type of cancer he had.
Gelbart, who won a Tony for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” an Emmy for “M-A-S-H” and was nominated for two Oscars, is most likely best remembered for the long-running TV show about Army doctors during the Korean War.
Carl Reiner, his longtime friend and colleague, called Gelbart “the Jonathan Swift of our day.”