Mel Tolkin
| Mel Tolkin | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Shmuel Tolchinsky August 3, 1913 Near Odessa, Ukraine |
| Died | November 26, 2007 (aged 94) Century City, California |
| Other names | Samuel Tolchinsky |
| Occupation | Television comedy writer |
| Years active | 1940s to 1980s |
| Notable work | Your Show of Shows |
| Awards |
Emmy Award Humanitas Prize Peabody Award Four Writers Guild of America Awards |
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.
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.
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".
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