Julien Barry, the 1971 Broadway play and 1974 film, each titled Lenny It tells the story of legendary comic Lenny Bruce, who died Tuesday at his Beverly Hills residence. He was 92 years previous.
He was reported useless New York occasions From his daughter, Julia Barry, who mentioned he died in his sleep and was underneath medical take care of congestive coronary heart failure and late-stage kidney illness.
Though Barry is broadly recognized for his extremely impactful, critically acclaimed initiatives for the author and his co-stars – Cliff Gorman on stage, Dustin Hoffman on display – Barry’s profession has spanned different initiatives that caught the eye of audiences of their day. he wrote unicornthe 1974 movie adaptation of Eugene Ionesco’s play starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, a movie that has grown considerably in appreciation since its preliminary important rejection, and the 1978 Faye Dunaway automobile Laura Mars eyesthat didn’t.
Barry started his profession within the Nineteen Fifties as a stage actor and stage supervisor, and shortly had an particularly unpromising begin in tv: two 1966 episodes of Probably the most ridiculous ship within the military And considered one of Mission: Inconceivable Identical yr.
Nevertheless, Hollywood was , and in 1969 Columbia Footage commissioned Barry to write down a biography about Bruce, a troubled comic who had died of a drug overdose three years earlier. The venture failed, and Barry moved in unicorn.
However she is unwilling to surrender Lenny Simply but, Barry received nearer Poetry Director Tom O’Horgan on her staging. Barry tailored his movie script for the stage, and the play—which, just like the later movie, made use of precise scripts from Bruce’s routine—grew to become a success on Broadway. Gorman gained a Tony Award for his efficiency as a comic, and have become one of many few forged members within the controversial collection The boys are within the band A movie to search out a direct follow-up to success.
Barry then went to work adapting the play, which had been tailored from a screenplay, for the Hollywood model. Hoffman has been forged as Bruce and Valerie Perrin as Honey Bruce, with Bob Fosse directing. The movie was praised by critics and earned six Academy Award nominations, together with Finest Image, Barry’s screenplay, Foss’ path, performances by Hoffman and Perrin, and black-and-white cinematography for director Bruce Surtees.
The movie left the 1975 awards ceremony empty-handed, although it was comprehensible in an impossibly aggressive yr that concerned it Chinatown, The Godfather Half Two And Alice would not dwell right here anymore.
Whereas Barry by no means reached these heights once more, he continued writing movies till 1992 myself and me Starring George Segal and Jobeth Williams. Different credit embody 1984 the river, With Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek and the 1991 TV film Marriage: Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz With Jane Alexander and Christopher Plummer.
Barry himself admitted that his profession by no means actually got here again Lenny ranges. in keeping with New York occasions, He took full accountability, blaming himself for having became a typical “Hollywood pseudo”, and as soon as recalled a disastrous encounter with Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack. In an effort to show Hollywood’s goodwill to him, Barry lit up a joint, which Redford or Pollack definitely did not like. like occasions Barry later recalled, “I needed to dwell as much as my popularity as a man who wrote about Lenny Bruce.”
Barry is survived by his associate, Samantha Harper Macy; daughters Julia (from his marriage to movie producer Laura Ziskin), Sally and Jennifer Barry; Son of Michael Barry and different prolonged household.