LOS ANGELES - Sam Denoff, an Emmy-winning writer on the classic sitcom "The Dick Van Dyke Show" who helped create the Marlo Thomas comedy "That Girl," has died. He was 83.
Denoff, who had Alzheimer's disease, died Friday at his home in Los Angeles' Brentwood section, said his son, Douglas.
Denoff and his longtime writing partner, Bill Persky, had written for the Steve Allen and Andy Williams television shows and such series as "McHale's Navy" when, in 1963, they sold a script for "The Dick Van Dyke Show," which ran on CBS from 1961 to 1966.
Persky and Denoff went on to share two Emmys for the series (one with series creator Carl Reiner) and work not only as writers but as story editors and producers. "When they came upon the scene, they saved my life," Reiner told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. "These two guys made my life possible after that."
In a telephone interview Sunday, Van Dyke remembered Denoff as "a real bon vivant. Sam knew all the best restaurants. . . . They don't make guys like that anymore."
Van Dyke said Persky and Denoff were well-suited to write for the series, which starred Van Dyke as comedy writer Rob Petrie, Mary Tyler Moore as his wife, Laura, Reiner as TV star Alan Brady, and Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie as Buddy Sorrell and Sally Rogers, writers on Brady's show.
"Bill kind of understood the love story between Mary and my character," Van Dyke said. "Sam wrote more for the office. He liked the one-line jokes, loved to write the insults."
Persky said Denoff "had a skewed way of looking at things. Most of his humor was kind of cutting. . . . He always knew where the punch line was going to be. Sammy always knew where he was heading and backed up to get there.
"We haven't been partners for 35 years, but we are linked forever," Persky said. "Somewhere in the world in a mud hut the credits Persky and Denoff are running on somebody's television set."
Samuel Denoff was born July 1, 1928, in Brooklyn, the second of two sons of Esther and Harry Denoff. In 1954, after working as a page at NBC, he was hired at radio station WNEW, where he met Persky. They wrote jingles and other material for disc jockey William B. Williams.
Persky and Denoff moved to California in 1961 to start working in television.
Reiner said their first script for "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was "all wrong," but they came back with another idea and he hired them. Persky described those years as "a free pass to Disneyland for the rest of your life."
Marlo Thomas wanted Persky and Denoff to write a series for her. "That Girl," which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, starred Thomas as Ann Marie, an aspiring actress in New York. Persky and Denoff wrote the pilot and were executive producers. Denoff even wrote the lyrics to the show's opening theme.
"Sam was my greatest convert to feminism as part of our great adventure bringing the first single girl to television," Thomas said in a statement Sunday.
Persky said Denoff made the show "more balanced. . . . I would have tended to be too soft and he too rigid, but together we found a middle ground."
They shared an Emmy in 1967 with Reiner, Mel Brooks and Mel Tolkin for writing a special starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Reiner and Howard Morris, and another as producers with Bill Hobin of a 1968 Bill Cosby special.
Persky and Denoff stopped working together in the 1970s because Persky wanted to direct, he said. Denoff's later credits included shows with Don Rickles, Lucie Arnaz and Garry Shandling. For several years, Denoff was a creative consultant on Jerry Lewis' annual muscular dystrophy telethon.