Irving Brecher Was a Mensch

I attended a funeral the other day, in the very same chapel where Cyd Charisse’s service was held last June. Cyd’s was an odd funeral for a Jewish cemetery but this one, for writer Irving Brecher who died last week at the age of 94, was wildly appropriate. Many of Brecher’s most famous colleagues are buried nearby and I’m sure their spirits were in the chapel welcoming him to the astral version of a table at the Carnegie Deli. Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City is the final resting place for many of the industry’s most prominent Jews. The list reads like the attendees of a Friars Club Roast: Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Moe Howard, Shelly Winters, Dinah Shore, Allan Sherman, Sheldon Leonard, David Janssen, Vic Morrow, Jeff Chandler, Jan Murray, Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, and in a spectacular towering white stone monument at the entrance to the park, Al Jolson.

Lest you think I am a celebrity funeral stalker, I can at least say that Brecher’s niece is a friend of mine. Well, not exactly his niece, but definitely a close member of the family. Brecher’s wife Norma was once married to my friend’s uncle, and when Norma and Irv got married almost 30 years ago, my friend and her family migrated to the new marriage. And why not? By all accounts, Irv Brecher was a joy to be around. At the funeral his wife and his friends confirmed that he could be difficult and opinionated but that he was also a fantastically loyal friend and, of course, one of the funniest, wittiest men on the planet.

You never heard of him? Yes you have. Have you heard of the Marx Brothers? Milton Berle? “The Wizard of Oz?” “Meet Me in St. Louis?” Then you’ve heard of Irv Brecher.

Brecher was born in 1914 in the Bronx and was a teenager working in a movie theatre on 57th Street in Manhattan when he started sending one-liners to columnists Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan. Sometimes his jokes ended up in print. When someone told him he should try getting paid for the one-liners, he put an add in Variety, touting his “positively Berle-proof gags—so bad not even Milton will steal them.” Milton Berle saw the ad, thought it was funny, and became Brecher’s first paying customer: $50 for a page of one-liners. Irv thought he was a millionaire. He was only 19.

The young writer started writing for Berle’s radio show and eventually got signed by producer-director Mervyn LeRoy who brought him to MGM. There he was the sole writer for two films starring his idols, the Marx Brothers. Brecher wrote the screenplays for “At the Circus” and “Go West.” He used to tell the story about meeting Groucho for the first time. He walked into Mervyn LeRoy’s office and Groucho was sitting at LeRoy’s desk.

“I said, ‘Hello, Mr. Marx.’ He said, “Hello? That’s supposed to be a funny line? Is this the guy who’s supposed to write our movie?” I probably turned white.

“Then I said, ‘Well, I saw you say hello in one of your movies, and I thought it was so funny I’d steal it and use it now.”

How many people could come up with such a perfect response to such an intimidating remark? Groucho laughed, took Irving to lunch, and they were great pals from then on.

One of Brecher’s earliest jobs at MGM was to punch up the comedy scenes in “The Wizard of Oz,” mostly the vaudeville-like bickering between the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. He didn’t get credit for this gig but his lines helped make the film such a timeless classic.

Although his personal style was far more appropriate for Marx Brothers films and the other sarcastic Jewish comedians he wrote for, Brecher found himself writing screenplays for some of the most beloved MGM musicals of all time, most notably “Meet Me in St. Louis.” It was at a Writers’ Guild screening for that film last year where I last saw Brecher in person, regaling the crowd with all sorts of ribald stories of those glory days. Though well into his 90s and not well, Brecher always came to life in front of an appreciative crowd, and I felt he could have gone on for hours.

Brecher also penned the scripts for some of MGM’s most stylistic and ambitious productions including gorgeous failures such as “Yolanda and the Thief” starring Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer (Judy Garland’s older sister from “Meet Me in St. Louis”), and three films that helped make Lucille Ball a star long before she conquered television: “DuBarry Was a Lady.” “Best Foot Forward,” and “Ziegfeld Follies.” In those days, movie producers would buy the rights to film successful Broadway shows and then inexplicably change them so much that the films bore only a fleeting resemblance to the original musical. “Du Barry Was a Lady” was an early Cole Porter vehicle for Ethel Merman on Broadway. Casting the non-singing Lucille Ball in Merman’s role was an indication of how far Brecher veered from the original story.

One actress who appeared in several Brecher films was the beautiful Virginia O’Brien. God, I loved that dame. She was famous for her deadpan singing style. She’d be given comedy numbers that she’d perform as if her face was shot full of Botox. She developed her trademark shtick by accident: in one of the first musical numbers she ever performed in front of an audience, she was basically paralyzed by stage fright. At the end of the number, she ran off the stage humiliated, until she realized that the audience thought her terror-filled performance was a scream. O’Brien’s character, Ginny, was not in the Broadway version of “Du Barry Was a Lady,” but she was excellent in the film. And because I'm sad that she is all but forgotten today, here is Virginia O’Brien in that film singing the crazy song, “No Matter How You Slice It, It’s Still Salome.”

(2009 Update: Darn it, the clip above was taken off of YouTube. Just because I don't want to deprive you of seeing Virginia O'Brien, here's another clip of her unblinking singing just so you can see the Queen of Deadpan in action:)

“Best Foot Forward” was another big musical that Brecher freely adapted for the screen as a vehicle for Lucille Ball’s rising star. In the preposterous plot, Ball plays herself, a glamorous movie star, who reluctantly agrees to participate in a PR stunt after a young cadet at a military academy invites her to be his date at his school prom. Bizarre, Weird. Fantastic! If you haven’t seen these Brecher-Ball collaborations, I couldn’t recommend them more highly.

The only holdovers from the Broadway cast of “Best Foot Forward” were two young whippersnappers, June Allyson, who would soon become the new darling of the MGM lot, and a brash young thing named Nancy Walker who is like a 1940s version of Bette Midler. For all her incredible talent, short, non-glamorous Walker was not destined for stardom in the movies of that era, and she'd have to wait several decades to make a huge name for herself on TV as Rhoda Morgenstern’s mother on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Rhoda” (not to mention her stints on “MacMillan and Wife” and as Rosie, the waitress in the “quicker picker-upper” Bounty paper towel commercials). Although this has little to do with Irv Brecher’s writing, I want to show you my favorite obscure musical number from “Best Foot Forward” called “The Three B’s” featuring Walker, Allyson, and the sexy Gloria De Haven. This should be in a time capsule for American pop culture of the early 1940s. Note the hideous dresses and hairstyles and the almost unintelligible slang. Also get a load of the star treatment given band leader and trumpet player Harry James (who had just become Mr. Betty Grable), one of the superstars of that era:

Irving Brecher’s other big claim to fame was creating the series “The Life of Riley,” both the radio version, starring William Bendix, as well as the TV version that gave Jackie Gleason his first big break. The show won the first Emmy Award in 1949 but was cancelled after a year because of low ratings and because Jackie Gleason wanted to move on to other projects. It reappeared in 1953 with Bendix back in the title role and stayed on TV in first-run episodes and then reruns until 1964.

Irving’s final screenplay was for another adaptation of a stage musical, 1963’s “Bye Bye Birdie.” Brecher did a fabulous job adapting that Elvis-like story into a hysterically funny film starring Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, Maureen Stapleton, and the hot new discovery, Ann-Margret. Between “The Wizard of Oz,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” and “Bye Bye Birdie,” I probably haven’t gone a week without quoting some line written by Irv Brecher. I have no idea what he was doing between that last screenwriting assignment 45 years ago and his death last week, especially since he still seemed sharp as a tack. I hope to hear about that and many other Hollywood stories in his upcoming autobiography that will be released on what would have been his 95th birthday this coming January. It’s sad that he didn’t live to see that publication, but “The Wicked Wit of the West: The Last Great Golden-Age Screenwriter Shares the Hilarity and Heartaches of Working With Groucho, Garland, Gleason, Burns, Berle, Benny & Many More,” by Irving Brecher as told to Hank Rosenfeld, promises to be a great read.

In the meantime, here’s the feisty man himself, in a Writer’s Guild spot filmed last year during the strike:

Hope you're surrounded by your friends up there, Irv. Enjoy your pastrami.

Comments

[Hillary]

Beautiful sentiments for an apparently overlooked talent. The contributions this man made to classic film alone are quite significant...I'm truly surprised he isn't a more familiar name to classic movie fans.

And I love Virginia O'Brien as well. The first time I saw her sing "Bring on the Wonderful Men" in Ziegfeld Follies, I was hooked - nothing compares to that sassy, deadpan style of hers.(I can't believe Brecher had a hand in that film, too!) I've always thought she looks impossibly like Marsha Hunt, another undervalued star, in that Salome number!

Thanks for the stellar post!

[Kitty]

Sorry to hear about Mr. Brecher's death. He used to be a patient at the ophthalmologist's where my mom worked, and she loved talking to him. She often urged him to write his memoirs, but he had no interest in doing that apparently... too bad!

Loved the spot he shot during the strike, too -- I thought it was the best one at the time, and I was happy to send my mom the link and say "Mr. Brecher is still alive!!!'

Thanks for the story; your post was awesome as always.

[David]

Great post, great bio, great visuals. I'm sure he's pleased there's a guy back in life called Danny Miller, who knows a good thing when he sees it.

[churlita]

I love your posts about forgotten screen gems. I don't know a lot about the old Hollywood population, but I grew up watching late night, old movies with my mom, so I love learning the background.

Thanks again for these great posts.

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

He certainly had a fantastic career, didn't he? But your question is well taken....What WAS he doing for those last 45 years---Perhaps writing for other things that people just do not know about as much.....! I hope you can research that and tell us what you find.

I have to take issue with you Danny saying Harry James became Mr. Betty Grable. Back then...Big Bands and Bandleaders were HUGE Stars in their own right....Talk about a forgotten and long gone period....Harry Kames and The Dorsey Brothers, Glenn Miller, Les Brown, Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa...just to name the "white" bandleaders, were ALL working in First run Movie Theatres---like The Capitol, The Paramount and The Roxy, in New York City, plus all over the country, and in Big Dance Venues, too. And THEY were all in films as well because they had HUGE Followings and The Big Band Era was in full Swing....So, in my mind, Betty Grable and Harry James were of equal stature in different parts of show biz...And I honestly do not recall that anyone thought of him as Mr. Betty Grable, back then...In fact, I remember thinking when they got married...WOW! What a great great couple, because he was as famous as she was, you know?
Anyway.....Mr. Brecher was certainly a formidable presence, wasn't he. That AD for the Writer's was FABULOUS! Really powerful! Thanks for this post, Danny.

[Leslie]

David Janssen. Who knew?

[soeurs du jour]

makes me think of the brecher joke we used to listen to.

http://hasidicnews.com/Chat/Brekhercmb.mp3

[Larry Yudelson]

Actually, Brecher did write his memoirs, which he called The Wicked Wit of the West. He finished going over the galleys before he died (consistently improving the text and making it funnier).

His last wish was that the publicity surrounding his death would help boost sales of the book.