Screenwriter Buck Henry, the comedy writer whose credits include 'The Graduate,' 'Get Smart' and 'Catch-22,' died Wednesday in Los Angeles.
He began his Hollywood career with a brief stint in stand-up comedy but didn’t like working in places “where people drank and yelled at me.” He then trained in improvisational theater and began writing for television and performing in variety shows such as “The Steve Allen Show” and “The Garry Moore Show.”
“Then it got to be more and more writing — and the need to act fell away. Losing that desire was a very good thing, because it really is a desperate kind of emotion,” he told The Times in that 1988 interview. “Ultimately, it has to do with the audience, because that’s the way you get approval. But there’s a much deeper approval in getting there, playing with words, [acting] with other people, finding a structure for behavior. It’s sort of like therapy,” he said.
“Even when I was an actor, I always thought it wasn’t enough. You know, traditionally, acting has been thought of as a dark art: extra-social, outside the range of what real people are supposed to do. Actors used to be just a cut above pirates. So writing always seemed to be the respectable art.”After word of his death spread, comics, actors and writers took to social media to commemorate Henry’s legacy with anecdotes about the screenwriter and his influence.
“Buck Henry was hilarious and brilliant and made us laugh more times than we even know,” filmmaker Judd Apatow wrote on Instagram. “I was lucky enough to be on a panel with him at SXSW and he was so funny. He said, ‘I don’t like to write with people because if they aren’t as funny as me I hate them and if they are funnier than me I hate them.’ ... One of the greats.”
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