Witty, personable, endearingly urbane Douglas McGrath — playwright (the Tony-nominated Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), screenwriter (Woody Allen‘s co-author on the Oscar-nominated Bullets Over Broadway), actor and columnist — suddenly died today, and he was only 64.
The night before last (Wednesday, 11.2) McGrath gave his last performance in Everything’s Fine, a 90-minute one-man-show that McGrath wrote, based on his life. Today he left, and at a relatively young age. I’m very, very sorry for all concerned.
I for one loved his Becoming Mike Nichols doc, which I saw at Sundance in early 16.
Bill McCuddy: “Lovely guy. Had his writing room apartment (a uniquely NY thing, I believe) in the same building [that] I lived in briefly on Central Park South. I had dated an entertainment journalist from his hometown of Midland, Texas and he was always charming on the few occasions we chatted. We both loved the “21 Club” Christmas lunches that the Salvation Army performed carols at and always advised each other to “not tell the others” about it. You could ask him anything about working with Woody Allen and he always spoke in admiring terms. After his direction of Emma I thought he would direct more but it didn’t seem to interest him. He was a New York guy. Very sad. He was performing in a John Lithgow directed play that I wanted to see next week. Ironically it was titled Everything’s Fine.”