Marshall Brickman: Biography

Born in Brazil to American parents, Marshall Brickman paid his way through college as a folksinger. While still in his teens, Brickman was a member of the Tarriers, a group which also included future actor Alan Arkin. Turning to writing, Brickman penned special material for Candid Camera, then hit the talk show circuit, winning an Emmy for his work on The Dick Cavett Show. Through Cavett, Brickman became acquainted with Woody Allen; he would collaborate on the scripts of some of Allen's best films of the 1970s. In 1977, Brickman and Allen shared an Oscar for the screenplay of Annie Hall (both men should have gotten Purple Hearts, considering the numerous torturous rewrites the script underwent before emerging on the screen). As a solo director, Brickman has displayed an acute gift for timing and a delightful sense of the ridiculous, though the quality of his films lacks the consistency of his Woody Allen collaborations. Brickman's best directorial effort was 1980's Simon, an identity-crisis science fiction satire starring Brickman's onetime fellow "Tarrier" Alan Arkin; his weakest effort was the teen-oriented flick The Manhattan Project (1985). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide