Larry Siegel

Lawrence H. Siegel (October 29, 1925 – August 20, 2019) was an American comedy writer and satirist who wrote for television, stage, magazines, records, and books.

[1] His first published work was a poem, Oh Dear What Can Sinatra Be?, which tweaked both the singer and his bobbysoxer fans, and ran in Earl Wilson's syndicated newspaper column in 1943.

In 1955, while on vacation in Nantucket, Siegel fell in love with Helen Hartman, an aide in the office of United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in New York.

Siegel also wrote song parodies, including several of those in the Mad special issue which ultimately provoked a failed lawsuit by Irving Berlin and other composers which established certain copyright law protections that endure to this day.

In the early 1980s, Siegel was hired as part of a team of writers to pen a sequel of sorts to the hit LP record The First Family.

During the 1990s, Siegel spent three years teaching comedy writing at UCLA before turning to acting and joining the Screen Actors Guild.

At the age of 87, Siegel was still doing improvisational comedy, writing, and performing in sketches for shows at the Broad Theater in Santa Monica, California.