Buck Henry, The Graduate screenwriter and frequent SNL host, dies at 89
Henry, whose real name was Buck Henry Zuckerman, was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for the classic 1967 film, The Graduate,
By HANNAH BROWNBuck Henry, 1978.(photo credit: ALAN LIGHT/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Buck Henry, a Hollywood screenwriter best known for The Graduate, died of a heart attack in Los Angeles at the age of 89 on Wednesday.Henry, whose real name was Buck Henry Zuckerman, was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for the classic 1967 film starring Dustin Hoffman and directed by Mike Nichols. Henry, who often acted, played the hotel desk clerk who got the film’s biggest laugh when he asked the hero, “Are you here for an affair, sir?”His work was often satiric and sharp, reflecting a new style of comedy that emerged in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He wrote and co-wrote screenplays for some of the most high-profile films of that era, including What’s Up, Doc? and The Owl and the Pussycat, both starring Barbra Streisand, as well as Catch-22, another film by Nichols. He was nominated for an Oscar for co-directing the 1978 film Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty.Henry co-created (with Mel Brooks) and wrote the spy-parody television show Get Smart, for which he won an Emmy in 1967. He appeared in dozens of movies and television shows and played Liz Lemon’s father on 30 Rock. He was one of the most frequent hosts of Saturday Night Live, and hosted or appeared as a guest on the show 16 times.Among his film acting credits were Milos Forman’s Taking Off, Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth with David Bowie, and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts and The Player.Henry was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of a mother who had been a silent-film star and a father who was a retired air force general and a stockbroker. In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, he gained notoriety as part of a famous prank in which he claimed to be a representative of the fictitious Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, demanding that all zoos be closed until the animals were “properly dressed.”Barbra Streisand, Judd Apatow, Sarah Silverman, Albert Brooks, Patton Oswalt, Rosanna Arquette, Marlee Matlin, Natasha Lyonne, Jake Tapper and many other celebrities took to Twitter to eulogize Henry. As Deadline put it in a headline, “Buck Henry’s Death Leaves Hollywood Straining for Superlatives to Describe His Immense Talent.”
