Video interview: Larry Gelbart (Part 4)

In honor of TV writer, screenwriter, and playwright Larry Gelbart, who died September 11, 2009, we are featuring an excerpt a day this week from a lengthy interview with Gelbart. It’s part of a fantastic series called “TV Legends” from the Archive of American Television.

UPDATE: A brief but wonderful acknowledgment of Gelbart from someone who knew Larry extremely well: Alan Alda who played Hawkeye Pierce on “M*A*S*H”, the long-running series which Larry wrote and produced for several years:

Achingly funny as it was, Larry Gelbart’s writing gave off sparks that turned a hard light on the way we are. Some people even said at the time that his episodes of M*A*S*H, with their unblinking account of the costs of war, helped our country lose its patience with the one they were then fighting in Vietnam. He certainly pointed us, with zero sentimentality, toward a more compassionate look at one another. Many physicians have told me they entered medicine to become the kind of doctor they saw in the character of Hawkeye Pierce.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-alda/my-friend-larry-gelbart_b_289175.html

Read the rest of the post. Touching and insightful.

Part Four