--------------- [excerpt from Woody Allen's autobiography] ------------------- My goal subtly shifted. I would do some gag writing for a while, perhaps, for Hope, perhaps for Berle or Jack Benny if I could make them aware of me.
But perhaps I should write deeper things than mere one-liners.
It was somewhere at that time that my relatives suggested I have a talk with a very distant relative by marriage, Abe Burrows.
Burrows was a famous comic writer and director and had coauthored the book of Guys and Dolls among other things. Perhaps an aunt who married into the family was circuitously related to him. I could never figure out the lineage.
I asked the aunt, who said she couldn't help me except to say he lived at the Beresford, the stylish West Side co-op. "How can I contact him?" I asked shyly. My mother, more aggressive than General Patton, said, "You don't have to contact him. You know where he lives. Just go over to his house."
Against my better judgment I dressed for a royal wedding and set out for the Beresford. I told the doorman I was there to see Abe Burrows. Tell him it's Nettie's son.
Just as I waited while he called up, out strolls Abe in a dark suit with a Homburg hat. The doorman points to me and says he's here to see you. I tell him who I'm related to, a tenuous connection, like maybe ten degrees of separation.
Burrows, who is heading out to an appointment, reverses himself, takes me by my shoulder upstairs, tosses his Homburg away and proceeds to chat with me for an hour, feeding me and showing great interest in seeing my jokes.
The guy was so nice, so decent, so wonderful.
I went back to that apartment a number of times.
He liked what he read of my jokes.
He criticized the ones he thought I missed on.
He wrote a letter on my behalf to Nat Hiken, the fine comedy writer of The Phil Silvers Show. Nothing came of it, but he tried.
During one of our chats when I told him my ambition to be a TV writer, he said, "You don't want to be a TV writer all your life." I said, Movies? He said no, theater. But don't all the playwrights want to write movies? No, all the screenwriters want to write plays. -------------------------------------------------------- [end / excerpt]
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Rock and roll for today, taking us into the weekend:
"Love Her Madly" by The Doors.
On You Tube,
uploader: 215 Days
and / or
uploader, NoMadU55555.
The NoMad one has film of the band playing.
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{Apropos of Nothing, by Woody Allen. Arcade Publishing, New York, NY, 2020.}
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