RIP Buck Henry

[Drunk Monk]

• OBITUARIES
  

Buck Henry Dies: ‘The Graduate’ Writer, ‘Get Smart’ Co-Creator & Early ‘SNL’ Favorite Was 89

January 8, 2020 6:49pm


Buck Henry in 'Taking Off,' 1971Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
Buck Henry, the legendary screenwriter behind The Graduate and What’s Up, Doc? who also co-created Get Smart and was a regular presence in the early years of Saturday Night Live, died tonight of a heart attack at Cedars-Sinai Health Center in Los Angeles. He was 89.
A family member confirmed the news to Deadline.
Henry scored a pair of Oscar nominations — one for his adapted screenplay for The Graduate and another for directing with Warren Beatty the 1978 movie Heaven Can Wait. He also won a writing Emmy in 1967 for Get Smart, the spy spoof he created with Mel Brooks, among many other accolades.


With John Belushi on ‘Saturday Night Live’
He became a familiar face to a new generation of TV viewers by hosting Saturday Night Live several times during its first five seasons. He might be best remembered as John Belushi’s foil in the classic “Samurai” skits.
Henry also had more than three dozen other acting credits.
“I wish I could do what writers of my generation do, which is just — open the gate and let it come out,” he said in a 2009 “The Interviews” sit-down for the TV Academy Foundation. “I envy them. It’s hard for me to do. That’s why I liked writing for television because I had to do something every day. … So the best secret is — and it’s not a secret — is just when [you] get stuck in a scene, write nonsense. But do something to keep your hand moving, doing something on the page. That’s all. There are no great insights.” Watch a clip of Henry talking about writing comedy about dark topics below.
Henry got his start writing for Steve Allen and Garry Moore’s TV shows in the 1960s before penning the script for The Graduate, Mike Nichols’ seminal film starring Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross and Anne Bancroft. The film scored seven Oscar noms including Best Picture, with Nichols winning Best Director. The pic made the top 10 in the AFI’s 100 Years … 100 Movies list in 1998.
Notable Hollywood and Entertainment Industry Deaths In 2020
Get Smart, starring Don Adams as the bumbling yet somehow effective Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, debuted on NBC in 1965. Driven by the popularity of the James Bond films, the CONTROL-vs.-KAOS sitcom was an early hit, finishing the season No. 12 among all primetime programs. Co-starring Barbara Feldon and Edward Platt, it moved to CBS for its fifth and final season in 1969-70.



Adams would reprise his iconic role for the 1980 feature The Nude Bomb, and — would you believe … — Steve Carrel starred in a 2008 Get Smart movie.
Henry would focus his screenwriting on the big screen during the 1970s, penning such films as Catch-22, The Owl and the Pussycat, Is There Sex After Death?, the Barbra Streisand starrer What’s Up, Doc? and The Day of the Dolphin.
He had appeared onscreen in numerous films and comedy shows by the mid-’70s when he was chosen to host Saturday Live Night during its first season in 1976. Appearing alongside the Not Ready for Primetime Players, he would go on to host nine more times through 1980, becoming the first SNL host to hit double digits. Among his memorable characters was the Samurai interviewer/straight man; Uncle Roy, who menaced children he was babysitting; a sadistic stunt coordinator; and Mr. Dantley, the father of Bill Murray’s uber-nerd Todd in the latter’s famous sketches with Gilda Radner.
During that time Henry also created Quark, a short-lived 1978 NBC sitcom that starred RIchard Benjamin that spoofed the era’s popular space epics. In 1984, NBC debuted variety-sketch The New Show, on which Henry was a regular alongside SCTV alum Dave Thomas and others. It aired briefly as a midseason replacement.
Henry would go on to co-pen the Nicole Kidman feature To Die For (1995) and the star-laden 2001 pic Town & Country. Early big-screen screenplay credits include the Radner-led First Family (1980) — his only featuring directing credit other than Heaven Can Wait — and Candy (1968), whose cast included Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, James Coburn and Walter Matthau.

There’s this one SNL skit where he’s a pervy babysitter for Gilda & Larraine (playing teens in pjs) that always stick with me as so messed up. I imagine it’s even worse to watch now that we’re all woke.

[King Bob]

They did that skit a few times as I recall. It was both sick and funny. Something you couldn't do anymore. Also read in the NY Times that John Belushi once cut him in the forehead with a sword during one of the Samurai sketches. You also couldn't do those today.

I had no idea how much he wrote. Especially surprised that he wrote To Die For.

[Greg]

Henry had a giant bandage on the side of his head for the rest of the episode. I think they might brought it up in the weekend update segment.

I especially liked him in Heaven Can Wait.

[Drunk Monk]

He always had this creepy vibe to me, not unlike Kevin Spacey.  Maybe I'm tainted by that babysitter sketch.  That was so wrong, even back then.  That being said, I respected his body of work, just like Spacey.  His Samurai sketches were hilarious - he was the perfect foil for Belushi.

[Drunk Monk]

my departed friend Shirley (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...p?tid=4763) can be seen at 4:20