Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Frog In Winter

Here's a fascinating profile of the late Jack Winter, a comedy writer who worked on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," fell in love with pygmies and frogs, spent a decade working on a play but then couldn't settle on an actor to star in it -- in other words, your typical eccentric. Here's my favorite bit, about the fight over his play when an investor got tired of waiting and wanted their money back:
Heated legal wrangling followed, and ultimately Mr. Winter was ordered to return all of the money to his investors. He had managed the money so well that they received their investment with a considerable amount of interest.

“He probably is the only one in history who returned a profit to his investors for a play that never opened,” [James L.] Brooks said.

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