Screenwriter Marshall Brickman, who collaborated with Woody Allen on several of his most important films, died in Manhattan on November 29 at the age of 85.

Brickman also co-wrote the Broadway musicals Jersey Boys and The Addams Family. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer for Allen Funt’s Candid Camera as well as The Tonight Show, where he created Johnny Carson’s “Carnac the Magnificent” monologues. He also worked on early pilots for The Muppet Show.

But it was his collaboration with Woody Allen that brought him enduring fame. He won an Oscar for writing Annie Hall and also worked on Sleeper, Manhattan, and Manhattan Murder Mystery. In a 2002 article, critic Roger Ebert wrote that “Annie Hall contains more intellectual wit and cultural references than any other movie ever to win the Oscar for best picture.”

And writing of Brickman’s work on Sleeper, critic Pauline Kael found it “charming — a very even work, with almost no thudding bad lines and with no low stretches. I can’t think of anything much the matter with it; it’s a small classic.”

Marshall Brickman was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and grew up in Brooklyn. He played the banjo in a number of folk-music groups before turning his talents to scriptwriting. Reflecting on Annie Hall in 2006, he called it “a weird movie that could probably never get made today. It was just too culturally specific.”  He added that the film was able to be made “because United Artists was this oasis between the old decaying studio system and the new corporate Hollywood.”

Brickman also wrote and/or directed several films on his own, including Simon (1980), Lovesick (1983), The Manhattan Project (1986), and  Sister Mary Explains It All (2001), starring Diane Keaton, who had starred in Annie Hall.

In accepting the Oscar for Annie Hall, Brickman said: “Half of this little piece of tin, if not much more, belongs to Woody, who is probably the greatest collaborator anyone could ever wish for. He does a lot of brilliant work. He takes our script and makes it into what you saw. He picks up my lunch check for about five months, and [today] he refuses to come out of his apartment.”

Brickman is survived by his wife Nina, daughters Sophie and Jessica, and five grandchildren

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