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by Larry Gelbart
Burt G. Shevelove always insisted that his middle initial stood for God.
It was nonsense, of course. God could not possibly have been that funny. Or as good a dresser. Or as good a critic and student (and teacher) of all things theatrical.
What the Almighty did do with great success was create in Burt a man who was, pound for pound, story for story, one of the best anecdotalists in the business. In any business.
Working with him for over five years on the book of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was, for me, a ringside seat at what I thought of as an Oscar Wilde West Show. (East Show, really. Burt was as out of place in Hollywood as a kind word.)
A stickler for style and correctness in all things verbal and/or written (and certainly sartorial), Burt was constantly dismayed by incorrect, styleless souls (and probably poorly dressed ones as well) who were forever carelessly misspelling his first name as Bert.
Learning that he was to receive the prestigious Christopher Award for one of his television shows, Burt made a point of informing the powers that were that he would appreciate seeing his name spelled correctly on the medallion he was to receive. Thats Burt, I heard him instruct someone on the phone. Burt with a u, he stressed, emphatically.
When the prize honoring his work arrived a few days later, it was neatly inscribed to Bert U. Shevelove.
Oh, well. He who lives by the anecdote...
Larry Gelbart has written for radio, television, theater and film in a career that has spanned the Golden Age of radio to the current Broadway season. His credits include TVs Your Show of Shows and M*A*S*H, the films Oh, God! and Tootsie, and, for the stage, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. A revival of his play Sly Fox opened in New York in April 2004.
by Dominick Dunne
When I graduated from Williams in 1949, I got a job at a theatrical publishing company in New York called Theater Arts Books. Bob McGregor, the president of that company, is the one who introduced me to Burt Shevelove, who was a star of the moment because of his revue Small Wonder. I think I saw it three times. He was brilliant and cultured. He knew everybody. I had always been crazy about the theater, and he knew that I wanted to go into the theater. He held out his hand and said, Ill show you.
He introduced me to so many people. Glamorous, elegant people. And I was just out of school and unsophisticated in the ways of New York. We would do exciting things like catch a train to Philadelphia for the opening night of some new show.
Burt made fun of TV. He called it the Last Resort of the Untalented. But I got a job being the stage manager of The Howdy Doody Show and then went to Robert Montgomerys show, which led to my work in movies.
Years later, in the 70s, I was producing a movie in Italy with Henry Fonda and Elizabeth Taylor called Ash Wednesday, and Burt visited me on location. And he said to me, Im proud of you. I had a father who never got my message at all, and Burt was like the pat on the back that I never got while I was growing up. It was a great moment for me.
The way he lived, the way he moved among people and could make rooms full of people roar with laughterBurt was a big force in my life.
Dominick Dunne, a onetime film producer, is the author of six novels, including The Two Mrs. Grenvilles and People Like Us. He has written two books of essays as well as a pictorial memoir, The Way We Lived Then. He is a special correspondent and monthly diarist for Vanity Fair magazine.
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