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

Marshall Brickman
| Photo Credit: Mary Altaffer

Marshall Brickman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter, whose wide-ranging career spanned some of Woody Allen’s best films, the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, and a number of Johnny Carson’s most beloved sketches, has died. He was 85.

Brickman died Friday in Manhattan, his daughter Sophie Brickman told The New York Times. No cause of death was cited.

Brickman was best known for his extensive collaboration with Allen, beginning with the 1973 film Sleeper. Together, they co-wrote Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). The loosely structured script for Annie Hall, in particular, has been hailed as one of the wittiest comedies. It won Brickman and Allen an Oscar for best original screenplay.

In his 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.”

“If the film is worth anything,” Brickman told Vanity Fair in 2017, “it gives a very particular specific image of what it was like to be alive in New York at that time in that particular social-economic stratum.”

Brickman and Allen had met in the early 1960s, when Allen was breaking through as a stand-up 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.”

Brickman, born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was the son of Jewish socialists Abram (who fled Poland during WWII) and Pauline (Wolin) Brickman, who was from New York. They later moved to the Flatbush section of 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 Terriers. 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.

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. I think that’s the death for any collaboration,” Brickman told the Writers Guild. “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.