Screenwriter Mickey Rose, a childhood friend of Woody Allen’s who collaborated with the comic on some of his early films, died Sunday, April 7, in Beverly Hills. He was 77.
Rose and Allen met at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, becoming friends over a shared love of jazz, baseball and movies and they would frequently skip school to head to a Dodgers game or into Manhattan to see a film. They both enrolled in New York University and while Allen flunked out, Rose earned a Bachelor’s Degree in film.
Rose first worked professionally with Allan on the comedy What’s Up Tiger Lily?, where the pair, along with a small number of other writers, redubbed the Japanese spy movie Kizino Kizi into a ridiculous story about secret agents scrambling to find a classified egg salad recipe.
Following Tiger Lily, the Rose and Allen wrote what would become Allan’s directorial debut, Take The Money And Run. The two completed the script to the mockumentary about an inept bank robber who rises to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list in just three weeks while sequestered in a room at the Plaza Hotel. Rose was also on location in San Fransisco, helping to add gags during production.
The duo followed up Take The Money And Run with the story of a New Yorker who inadvertently becomes leader of a revolution in a Latin American country, Bananas. The film had its roots in an aborted adaptation of Richard Powell’s comic novel Don Quixote, USA for director Robert Morse that the two had worked on.
Rose’s and Allen’s partnership ended in 1970, when the writer headed to Los Angeles to work in television. He contributed scripts and material to such shows as All in the Family and Love American Style. He also wrote the comedy film I Wonder Who’s Klling Her Now? and did some uncredited script work on Disney’s Condorman.
