Tony Sokol Jan 9, 2020
Buck Henry, who created classic comedy for big and small screens, dies at 89.
Genius comedy writer and actor Buck Henry died of a heart attack at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Health Center at the age of 89, according to Variety. Henry was a frequent host on Saturday Night Live, wrote the screenplays for such comedy classics as The Graduate and What’s Up, Doc? and co-created Get Smart with Mel Brooks.
Buck Henry, who was born Henry Zuckerman on Dec. 9, 1930, was the son of silent film actress Ruth Taylor, who was also the star of the original Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. His stockbroker father was a retired Air Force brigadier general named Paul Steinberg Zuckerman. Given Henry’s penchant for comic corruption, this may have informed the educational subterfuge he mined to adapt, along with collaborator Calder Willingham, Charles Webb's novel The Graduate for Mike Nichols' 1967 classic generational comedy. “I...
Buck Henry, who created classic comedy for big and small screens, dies at 89.
Genius comedy writer and actor Buck Henry died of a heart attack at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Health Center at the age of 89, according to Variety. Henry was a frequent host on Saturday Night Live, wrote the screenplays for such comedy classics as The Graduate and What’s Up, Doc? and co-created Get Smart with Mel Brooks.
Buck Henry, who was born Henry Zuckerman on Dec. 9, 1930, was the son of silent film actress Ruth Taylor, who was also the star of the original Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. His stockbroker father was a retired Air Force brigadier general named Paul Steinberg Zuckerman. Given Henry’s penchant for comic corruption, this may have informed the educational subterfuge he mined to adapt, along with collaborator Calder Willingham, Charles Webb's novel The Graduate for Mike Nichols' 1967 classic generational comedy. “I...
- 1/10/2020
- Den of Geek
Both filmmaker Jenny Abel and the subject of her uproarious documentary, her father Alan Abel, will be criss-crossing the south all through February with their film Abel Raises Cain. Their journey is being sponsored by the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers. Tour dates are below.
Alan Abel is currently the reigning champion of media hoaxsers, having pulled numerous fast ones on the unsuspecting public since the early ’60s. Abel’s prankster behavior began when a national magazine inadvertently fell for a spoof article he had written calling for the world’s naked animals to start wearing pants. Soon, Abel had formed a fake advocacy group and hired a young Buck Henry to pretend to be its leader.
With that, Abel’s “career” was off, pulling off one hoax after another, from running phony presidential candidates to pretending to run a school for beggars to campaigning against breast feeding. Abel...
Alan Abel is currently the reigning champion of media hoaxsers, having pulled numerous fast ones on the unsuspecting public since the early ’60s. Abel’s prankster behavior began when a national magazine inadvertently fell for a spoof article he had written calling for the world’s naked animals to start wearing pants. Soon, Abel had formed a fake advocacy group and hired a young Buck Henry to pretend to be its leader.
With that, Abel’s “career” was off, pulling off one hoax after another, from running phony presidential candidates to pretending to run a school for beggars to campaigning against breast feeding. Abel...
- 2/4/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Meet the most dangerous man in America. Way before the Yes Men, Alan Abel was duping the media with all kinds of outrageous hoaxes. From trying to clothe animals to running a school for beggars to protesting against breast feeding, nobody, but nobody, could pull the wool over the public’s eyes like Abel. And, entering into his sunset years — he’s still at it! Calling radio stations, writing fake editorials, handing out outrageous flyers, Alan Abel couldn’t stop pulling hoaxes if he tried. His life and wacko career is intimately profiled in the documentary Abel Raises Cain by someone who knows his tricks and scams all too well: His daughter Jenny Abel.
This is a very loving documentary. Jenny is obviously very close to her father and her mother, so the documentary doesn’t really explore any negative aspects to Abel’s stunts, if there are any. Although...
This is a very loving documentary. Jenny is obviously very close to her father and her mother, so the documentary doesn’t really explore any negative aspects to Abel’s stunts, if there are any. Although...
- 1/30/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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