Tony Award-Winner Gene Saks Has Died at Age 93

Tony Award-winner Gene Saks, famous for directing Neil Simon plays, died of pneumonia on Saturday in his home in East Hampton, NY. He was 93.

Gene Saks (born November 8, 1921) was an American stage and film director. He studied at Cornell University and trained for acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator.

Saks had shared a long-term professional relationship with playwright/comedy writer Neil Simon, directing his plays Biloxi Blues, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Jake's Women, Rumors, Lost in Yonkers, Broadway Bound, The Odd Couple, and California Suite.

His additional Broadway credits include Enter Laughing; Half a Sixpence; Nobody Loves an Albatross; Mame; I Love My Wife; Same Time, Next Year; and Rags.

He won Tony Awards for direction for I Love My Wife, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and Biloxi Blues.

Among Saks' film directing credits are Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Cactus Flower (which won Goldie Hawn the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Mame, So I Married an Axe Murderer (uncredited) and the 1995 television production of Bye Bye Birdie.

Saks made his acting debut on Broadway in South Pacific in 1949. On stage he also appeared in A Shot in the Dark, The Tenth Man, and A Thousand Clowns, in the role of Leo "Chuckles The Chipmunk" Herman, which he reprised in the film version. He portrayed Jack Lemmon's brother in the screen adaptation of Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue, and also appeared in Nobody's Fool starring Paul Newman.

Saks was married to fellow Actors Studio member, actress Bea Arthur, from 1950-1980. The couple had two sons by adoption. He had a daughter with second wife Keren Saks.

Saks was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1991.

Photo credit: Gene Saks