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Herb Gardner, an award-winning playwright best known for his Broadway hits "A Thousand Clowns," "I'm Not Rappaport" and "Conversations With My Father," has died. He was 68.
Gardner, who had a long battle with lung disease, died Wednesday at his home in New York City.
Known for writing about convention-defying iconoclasts and contemporary urban misfits, Gardner achieved his first Broadway success in 1962 with "A Thousand Clowns," a comedy starring Jason Robards as a dropout children's TV show writer who will lose custody of his nephew if he doesn't return to work.
The 1965 screen version of the play, also starring Robards, earned Gardner an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation and Martin Balsam, who played Robards' brother, an Oscar for best supporting actor.
Gardner followed that success by writing and directing "The Goodbye People," a 1968 flop about a man who wants to open a tropical drink stand on a beach boardwalk. It closed on Broadway after one performance.
Gardner didn't have his next big hit until "I'm Not Rappaport," a comedy about two cranky octogenarians starring Judd Hirsch and Cleavon Little. It ran for two years on Broadway and won...