Other names Samuel Tolchinsky Role Television writer Name Mel Tolkin | Years active 1940s to 1970s Siblings Sol Tolchinsky | |
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Full Name Shmuel Tolchinsky Awards Emmy AwardHumanitas PrizePeabody AwardFour Writers Guild of America Awards Died November 26, 2007, Century City, California, United States Spouse Edith Leibovitch (m. 1944–2007) Children Michael Tolkin, Stephen Tolkin Grandchildren Emma Tolkin, Susanna Tolkin, Theadora Tolkin Similar People | ||
Mel Tolkin on his mother visiting him on "Your Show of Shows" - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG
Mel Tolkin on the writers room of "Caesar's Hour" - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG
Mel Tolkin, né Shmuel Tolchinsky(August 3, 1913 – November 26, 2007), was a television comedy writer best known as head writer of the seminal live TV sketch comedy series Your Show of Shows (NBC, 1950–1954) during the Golden Age of Television. There he presided over a storied staff that at times included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, and Larry Gelbart. The writers' room inspired the film My Favorite Year (1982), produced by Brooks, and the Broadway play Laughter on the 23rd Floor (1993), written by Neil Simon.
Contents
- Mel Tolkin on his mother visiting him on Your Show of Shows EMMYTVLEGENDSORG
- Mel Tolkin on the writers room of Caesars Hour EMMYTVLEGENDSORG
- Early life and career
- Your Show of Shows
- Later life and career
- Other writing
- Awards
- Legacy
- References
Tolkin, who won an Emmy Award and every other major prize for television writing, was the father of screenwriter-novelist Michael Tolkin and TV writer-director Stephen Tolkin.
Early life and career
Mel Tolkin was born Shmuel Tolchinsky (Russian: Тол(ь)чинский, cog. Тульчинский, Ukrainian: Толчинський, Polish: Tolczyński, cog. Tulczyński, means "from Tuľčyn") in a Jewish shtetl near Odessa, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. This background of anti-Semitic pogroms, shared by other comedy writers of his generation, he noted in 1992, "I'm not happy to have to say ... created the condition where humor becomes anger made acceptable with a joke".
His family moved to Montreal, Canada in 1926, where Tolkin became known as Samuel. He studied accounting after graduating from high school, and surreptitiously entered show business by composing songs and sketches for local revues and playing piano in jazz clubs. Fearing his parents would disapprove of what they would see as an impractical career choice, he began using the pseudonym Mel Tolkin.
During World War II, Tolkin did military service in the Canadian Army, playing the glockenspiel in a military orchestra. He moved to New York City, New York, in 1946, and married Edith Leibovitch that year. Teaming with Lucille Kallen, who would become his longtime writing partner, Tolkin began concocting comedy for performers at the Poconos resort Camp Tamiment. In 1949, the duo became the sole writing staff of the NBC television network variety show The Admiral Broadway Revue. By the following year, that series, starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, had evolved into Your Show of Shows.
Your Show of Shows
Considered by TV historians as a classic of the medium, with Ronald C. Simon, television curator of The Paley Center for Media calling it "a pinnacle of television history", the series presented 90 minutes of comedy live each week for 39 weeks a year, for a total of 160 shows airing February 25, 1950, to June 5, 1954. From its sixth-floor office on West 56th Street in Manhattan, writers including Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart, Lucille Kallen and head writer Tolkin, famously fought, argued, quipped, crafted, "paced, muttered, swore, occasionally typed and more than occasionally threw things: crumpled paper cups, cigars (lighted) and much else. The acoustical-tile ceiling was fringed with pencils, which had been flung aloft in a rage and stuck fast; Mr. Tolkin once counted 39 of them suspended there".
The series quickly settled into a starring quartet of Caesar, Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris. Many of its sketches became classics that found a new audience beginning in 1973, when the show's producer-director, Max Liebman, compiled the theatrical film release 10 From Your Show of Shows. Tolkin continued writing on an acclaimed successor series, Caesar's Hour, which ran September 27, 1954 through 1957. He also wrote the theme song for Your Show of Shows, "Stars Over Broadway".
Later life and career
For six years in the 1970s, Tolkin was a story editor on the landmark CBS sitcom All in the Family, writing several of its scripts. He also wrote for the sequel series Archie Bunker's Place, and for the Tony Randall sitcom Love, Sidney.
Tolkin died of heart failure at age 94, at his home in Century City, California. Aside from children and grandchildren, he was survived by his wife, Edith, and by a brother, Sol Tolchinsky. He was interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Other writing
Tolkin also wrote comedy for the standup comics and nightclub entertainers Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, and Danny Thomas.
Awards
Tolkin and co-writers Sam Denoff, Bill Persky, and Carl Reiner shared the 1967 Outstanding Writing Achievement in Variety Emmy Award, for The Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris Special.
Tolkin also received the following Emmy nominations:
With writing partner Larry Rhine, Tolkin shared a 1978 Humanitas Prize for 30 Minute Network or Syndicated Television, for the All in the Family episode "The Brother". Rhine and Tolkin also shared a 1977 nomination in that category, for the All in the Family episode "Archie's Brief Encounter - Part II".
Tolkin also received four Writers Guild of America Awards and two additional nominations:
Tolkin also received a Peabody Award.
Legacy
The Your Show of Shows writers' room inspired the film My Favorite Year (1982), produced by Brooks, and the Broadway play Laughter on the 23rd Floor (1993), written by Neil Simon.