RIP Douglas McGrath

 

Douglas McGrath Dies: ‘Emma’ Filmmaker, Writer Of ‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’, Oscar-Nominated Co-Author Of Woody Allen’s ‘Bullets Over Broadway’ Was 64

 

DEADLINE

By Greg Evans

November 4, 2022

 

Douglas McGrath, the director and writer whose work spanned film, stage and television and earned him a Tony nomination for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and an Oscar nomination for the Bullets Over Broadway screenplay he co-authored with Woody Allen, died suddenly yesterday in New York City. He was 64.

At the time of his death, McGrath was starring in the Off Broadway solo show he’d written, Everything’s Fine, an autobiographical play directed by John Lithgow at the Daryl Roth Theatre. With McGrath’s death, the show played its final performance on Wednesday, November 2. The show was to have played at least through Jan. 22, 2023.

Details on a cause of death were not immediately available.

His death was announced by the Everything’s Fine producers Daryl Roth, Tom Werner and John Lithgow.

“The company of Everything’s Fine was honored to have presented his solo autobiographical show,” their statement reads. “Everyone who worked with him over the last three months of production was struck by his grace, charm, and droll sense of humor, and sends deepest condolences to his family.”

Born and raised in Midland, Texas, McGrath was an alumnus of the Trinity School of Midland, The Choate School and Princeton University.

McGrath began his writing career on the staff of Saturday Night Live during the notorious 1980-81 season. Among his most notable works are the theatrical productions Checkers, The Age of Innocence and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, for which he was nominated for the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. Written and co-directed with Peter Askin) and, as writer and director, Infamous, the 2006 Truman Capote biopic that starred Toby Jones in the title role, Daniel Craig as killer Perry Smith and Sandra Bullock as Nelle Harper Lee.

McGrath was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay of 1994’s Bullets Over Broadway, which he co-wrote with Allen. The screenplay was used as a basis for Allen’s 2014 Broadway stage adaptation.

In addition to his year at SNL, McGrath’s TV credits include the direction of two documentaries for HBO, His Way, about the legendary music promoter and movie producer Jerry Weintraub, and Becoming Mike Nichols. Both were Emmy-nominated.

As an actor, McGrath appeared in the Oscar-nominated Quiz Show, The Insider, Michael Clayton, Company Man and seven films by Woody Allen: Celebrity, Sweet and Lowdown, Small Time Crooks, Hollywood Ending, Café Society, Crisis in Six Scenes and Rifkin’s Festival.

McGrath also wrote essays for The New Yorker, The New York Times and Vanity Fair and was a columnist at Air Mail.

He is survived by wife Jane Read Martin, and son Henry McGrath.

McGRATH, Douglas (Douglas Geoffrey McGrath)

Born: 2/2/1958, Midland, Texas, U.S.A.

Died: 11/3/2022, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

 

Douglas McGrath’s western – actor:

Godless (TV) – 2017 (Edward Solomon)