Saul Bellow was a Canadian–American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times, and he received the National Book Foundation's lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.
Stanley Lawrence Elkin was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American consumerism, popular culture, and male-female relationships.
The Producers is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film written and directed by Mel Brooks and starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, and Kenneth Mars. The film is about a theater producer and his accountant who scheme to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in a stage musical purposely designed to fail. They find a script celebrating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and bring it to the stage. Because of this theme, The Producers was controversial from the start and received mixed reviews. It became a cult film and found a more positive critical reception later.
In Greek mythology, Elpenor, also spelled Elpinor, was the youngest comrade of Odysseus. While on the island of Circe, he became drunk and decided to spend the night on the roof. In the morning he slipped on the ladder, fell, and broke his neck, dying instantly.
Leopold Bloom is the fictional protagonist and hero of James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses. His peregrinations and encounters in Dublin on 16 June 1904 mirror, on a more mundane and intimate scale, those of Ulysses/Odysseus in Homer's epic poem: The Odyssey.
Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June, the day his 1922 novel Ulysses takes place in 1904, the date of his first sexual encounter with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, and named after its protagonist Leopold Bloom.
Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Sorrell Booke was an American actor who performed on stage, screen, and television. He acted in more than 100 plays and 150 television shows, and is best known for his role as corrupt politician Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg in the television show The Dukes of Hazzard.
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions often ran contrary to those of her contemporaries.
The Heartbreak Kid is a 1972 American romantic black comedy film directed by Elaine May and written by Neil Simon, starring Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd, Jeannie Berlin, Audra Lindley, Eddie Albert, and Doris Roberts. It is based on the short story "A Change of Plan", written by Bruce Jay Friedman and first published in Esquire in 1966.
Jessica Ann Walter was an American actress who appeared in over 170 films, stage and television productions. In films, she was best known for her role as a psychotic and obsessed fan of a local disc jockey in the 1971 Clint Eastwood thriller, Play Misty for Me. On television, she was most recently known for her role of Lucille Bluth on the sitcom Arrested Development, and providing the voice of Malory Archer on the FX animated series Archer (2009–21). Walter received various awards over the course of her television career including a Primetime Emmy Award for Amy Prentiss (1975). She also received two Golden Globe Award nominations and three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. For her starring role opposite Eastwood in Play Misty for Me, Walter received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
Funny Lady is a 1975 American biographical musical comedy-drama film and the sequel to the 1968 film Funny Girl. The film stars Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall and Ben Vereen.
The Prisoner of Second Avenue is a 1975 American black comedy film written by Neil Simon, directed and produced by Melvin Frank and starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft. Neil Simon adapted the screenplay from his 1971 Broadway play.
Wallace Markfield was an American comic novelist best known for his first novel, To an Early Grave (1964), about four men who spend the day driving across Brooklyn to their friend's funeral. He is also known for Teitlebaum's Window (1970), a comic novel about a Jewish boy growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and 1940s. Markfield was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1965 after the publication of To an Early Grave.
The Odd Couple is a 1968 American comedy film directed by Gene Saks, produced by Howard W. Koch and written by Neil Simon, based on his 1965 play. It stars Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as two divorced men – neurotic neat-freak Felix Unger and fun-loving slob Oscar Madison – who decide to live together.
Maxwell Henry Wolf Burkholder is an American actor. He is most notable for his role as Max Braverman in the comedic television drama on NBC, Parenthood. Prior to that, he became known as a voice actor for his roles as Chomper in The Land Before Time, Roo on My Friends Tigger & Pooh and World in the television movie of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Destination: Imagination. In 2013, Burkholder appeared in the film The Purge. He is currently a member of the comedy account on Instagram, Max 'n' the Jakey Boys.
Portnoy's Complaint is a 1972 American comedy film written and directed by Ernest Lehman. His screenplay is based on the bestselling 1969 novel of the same name by Philip Roth. It was Lehman's first and only directorial effort.
Isaac Rosenfeld was an American writer who became a prominent member of New York intellectual circles. Rosenfeld wrote one novel, which, according to literary critic Marck Shechner, "helped fashion a uniquely American voice by marrying the incisiveness of Mark Twain to the Russian melancholy of Dostoevsky," and many articles for The Nation, Partisan Review, and The New Republic. Some of those articles were posthumously published in a volume titled An Age of Enormity, and his short stories were later published as Alpha and Omega.
Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York is a 1975 black comedy film directed by Sidney J. Furie about a shy young woman who moves to New York City and falls in love with the boyfriend of her extroverted roommate. The film was co-written by Kenny Solms and Gail Parent, and based on her novel. The film was shot on location in New York City.
