In May, the New York Times reported that Prognosis: Negative, a long-lost screenplay by Larry David, had appeared on eBay. History went viral, but what few people knew at the time: author Blake J. Harris would reveal the full story in his biography Emperor of Nothing: The Creation of Larry David (released October 20 from HarperCollins)which devotes two chapters to the tale.
These chapters began to take shape when Harris came across a 2015 book. The Hollywood Reporter guest column by Marilyn Black, Davids’ former manager who wrote about Prognosis: negative for THR. “It wasn’t just that she was his manager, but she was clearly a good storyteller,” Harris says of her connection with Black. Black remembers that one of her first calls when she started shopping for the script was to Rob Reiner: “Rob looked through it, and he thought it was great, and he said he wanted to direct it.”
Below is one of the Prognosis: negative chapters, picking up after David found himself unemployed following the end of FridaysA Saturday evening live counterfeit broadcast on ABC from 1980 to 1982.
By the end of Fridays, Larry had saved enough money to survive for about eighteen months.
“I’m thirty-four and I have some savings for the first time in my life,” says Larry, “so I’m starting to think, ‘Okay, maybe I should invest in a stock.’ And at that point, I happened to know a guy who had a tip.
Truth be told, Larry didn’t really know the “guy.” Well, not directly.
“I had a friend who had a friend,” Larry says. “He was tipped and I knew he made money at the market.”
As soon as Larry invested his savings in this stock, he should have realized it was a mistake. Not because he immediately started losing money, but because he quickly got lost. He went from Observant Larry to Obsessive Larry, a guy who had to know, at every moment, the last value his stocks had traded at. Fortunately, the value increased and, without lifting a finger, Larry became a richer man.
“But then,” Larry recalls, “it started to go down.”
Worse still, as the stock began to fall, Larry learned that his “guy” was in the hospital and he had no way to contact him.
“I didn’t know what to do,” laments Larry. “And I stupidly kept it.”
As a result, Larry quickly lost more than half of the money he had saved. And even if years later, Larry’s financial misadventure would bring a glimmer of hope, since it would be the inspiration for a first episode of Seinfeld– this possible consolation brought him no comfort at the moment. Mainly because Larry was now unemployed and had only saved for another nine months.
“So it wasn’t great,” Larry admits. “But then again, hey, at least I wasn’t broke. I mean…basically, after FridaysI was back where I was before I did the show. Where my life revolved around stand-up. The only real difference was that I was now doing it in Los Angeles. But once the show was over, I had no reason to be there. So I decided to return to New York.
In the tidy account of Larry David’s life story, Fridays finished and Larry returned to New York. And it’s true that he ended up doing it. But before doing so, he stayed in Los Angeles for two more years, where he returned to stand-up and gradually moved from on-screen performer to actual screenwriter.
This pivot happened slowly and, like most major changes in Larry’s life, it happened unintentionally. Because originally, after FridaysLarry did what he was supposed to do: look for new jobs in film and television.
This was, after all, what his old man meant Fridays did the castmates. Mark Blankfield, for example, booked a guest spot on Taxi and a starring role in a made-for-TV spin-off from The moron. Likewise, Michael Richards has landed guest spots on hit shows like Cheers, Night CourtAnd Miami Viceand even a recurring role on Saint-Ailleurs.
Larry, however, was less fortunate, reserving only a few seconds of screen time in an unforgettable studio film, Doubtsas well as an equally unknown role in a low-budget independent film, Can she make cherry pie?
“My character didn’t even have a name!” Larry talks about his role in the latter, in which he is credited as simply “Death’s friend in the Café”. And, as Larry notes, “Mort wasn’t even one of the protagonists!” »
If Larry had hoped to become the next Hollywood heartthrob, this post-Fridays period would have been worrying. But the lack of opportunities allowed Larry to focus on more important things.
“At that point,” Larry recalls, “I started doing stand-up every night again. I was doing clubs in Los Angeles. And at the same time… I got my life back. So I started working on a (movie) script called Prognosis: negative.”
Prognosis: negative was a dark comedy centered around a protagonist, Leo Black, who closely resembled Larry David from the 1970s. Like Larry, the character lived in New York (a Hell’s Kitchen apartment); like Larry, the character drove a limousine (heating a visually impaired old woman); and like Larry, the character was a neurotic hypochondriac who was so deeply gripped by feelings of remorse that he made commitment nearly impossible. Especially romantic relationships – which led to the underlying question that fueled Prognosis: negative: How can a man with deep commitment issues survive in a world where he is constantly pressured to settle down and live happily ever after?
For true commitment-phobes like Larry, there didn’t seem to be a good answer to this question. But for his storyline’s protagonist, there’s suddenly a glimmer of hope midway through the first act, when he overhears a doctor discussing the declining health of a recent ex-girlfriend.
COLLEAGUE
So what is the prognosis?
DR. BURNEL
Not very good. . .Ten months. . . at most.
Upon learning this horrible news, Larry’s protagonist has a revelation: If he could win back his terminally ill ex-girlfriend, he could have a romantic relationship without having to honor a lifelong commitment.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” Richard Lewis talks about Prognosis: negative. “I remember when he told me about the idea and I just thought, ‘That’s a great premise!’ And then I read it. Wow! »
In addition to a solid premise, Larry’s storyline featured many of his future trademarks: witty, natural-sounding banter and selfish but relatable behavior that spirals out of control. Additionally, for fans of Seinfeld And Sidewalkthe storyline also included early incarnations of incidents that resurface in one way or another in these shows, such as being banned from a fruit stand, pretending to hold an elevator door open, or lying about being a volunteer for the Big Brother program.
It was really a strong storyline. But without a literary agent or manager, Larry didn’t really know what to do. Prognosis: negative. So naturally, Richard Lewis wanted to help.
“Look,” Lewis told Larry one night at the Improv, “if I knew a good manager for this sort of thing, I would introduce him to you in a heartbeat.”
Luckily, Lewis did end up helping Larry in this case. Because around this time, Lewis began dating a woman named Marilyn Black, who had the influence, connections, and savvy to get Larry’s screenwriting career off the ground.
“I hung out a lot at improv,” Marilyn explains. “And it was, I would say, the golden age of comedy. There was Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Roseanne (Barr) and my client, Rick Overton, and Robin Williams. It was just an incredible time. And at one point I started dating Richie Lewis, and that’s how I ended up meeting Larry.”
Like many girlfriends throughout history, Marilyn ended up spending a lot of time with her boyfriend’s best friend.
“There was nothing more fun than hanging out with Richard Lewis and Larry David,” Marilyn recalls. “And finally, Richie said to me, ‘Larry just wrote a script called Prognosis: negative and could use someone well-connected and courageous to help sell it.
“It’s the the biggest script I’ve never read! » » Lewis assured Marilyn.
“Richie really did his best to talk about Larry’s storyline,” notes Marilyn. “Which wasn’t a surprise, he really cared about his friend. But the truth is, I thought Larry was hilarious and I was happy to read everything he wrote.”
On January 26, 1983, Larry gave Marilyn a copy of Prognosis: negative.
“I read it and I freaked out!” Marilyn remembers. “I told him it was great. I mean, not only was it hilarious, but it had such a unique point of view. It was immediately clear to me that Larry was an original, you know? One of those rare writers whose voice can’t be replicated.”
Marilyn thought that Prognosis: negative was a work of genius and its author was essentially the love child of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. “I became his manager,” Marilyn says. “Technically, I was his writing manager And acting. But you know, he didn’t play much back then. Although I did send him out for auditions! But in reality, the main thing, especially at the beginning, was that I go and sell Prognosis.”
“I didn’t really know how these things were supposed to go,” Larry says of the process that followed. “But Marilyn seemed to know what she was doing.”
“Looking back,” Marilyn reflects, “I’m really amazed at how many heavyweights I’ve known! I passed that scenario on to everyone. And I mean everyone.”
When purchasing a script, there are two types of “everyone” to approach: producers (who, ideally, will want to choose the script) and…
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