Stage, film director of Simon comedies
The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Gene Saks, a prolific actor-director who teamed with playwright Neil Simon on hit Broadway and movie productions of such Simon comedies as The Odd Couple and Brighton Beach Memoirs, has died. He was 93.
Saks, who won three Tony Awards for his direction, died from pneumonia Saturday at his East Hampton home in New York, according to his son Daniel.
Saks' hits also included many without Simon. Among them were the musicals Mame (1966), starring Angela Lansbury and his then-wife Bea Arthur; Half A Sixpence, starring British pop star Tommy Steele (1965); and I Love My Wife (1977), as well as such comedies as Enter Laughing (1963) and Same Time, Next Year (1975).
The Simon-Saks collaboration had its beginnings in 1963 when Simon asked Saks -- then a Broadway actor -- to go to New Hope, Pa., and critique a tryout of Barefoot in the Park. The play -- under Mike Nichols' direction -- turned out to be one of Broadway's biggest hits of the 1960s, running for more than 1,500 performances.
Three years later, when Simon was preparing the film version of Barefoot in the Park, he persuaded producer Hal Wallis to hire Saks as director of his first movie.
In addition to the famous trilogy of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound, their work together on Broadway included California Suite, Lost in Yonkers, Rumors, Jake's Women and the female version of The Odd Couple.
Their other films were The Odd Couple -- with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau -- Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Prisoner of Second Avenue and Brighton Beach Memoirs.
Metro on 03/31/2015