Three-Time Tony Winner Gene Saks Dead at 93

Three-time Tony winner Gene Saks, the actor-turned-director perhaps best known for his work with Neil Simon, died on March 28 in East Hampton, N.Y. According to The New York Times, his wife, Keren, said the cause of death was pneumonia. He was 93.

Saks was born Jean Michael Saks in Manhattan on November 8, 1921 and grew up in Hackensack, N.J., where his father ran a wholesale women’s shoe business. After graduating from Cornell and serving in the Navy during the Second World War, he studied acting at the New School for Social Research and the Actors Studio and was one of the founders of the theater cooperative at the Cherry Lane Theater. Saks made his Broadway debut as an actor in South Pacific in 1949, going on to perform in seven more shows on the main stem including Howie and Love and Libel, before directing his first, Enter Laughing, in 1963. It was around this time that Saks met Simon.

Saks went on to helm eight of the playwright’s shows on Broadway, starting with 1976’s California Suite and including Lost in Yonkers (for which he received a Tony nod), The Odd Couple and Rumors. Saks won Tonys for his direction of Simon’s plays Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues. He also won a Tony for his work on the Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart musical I Love My Wife and garnered additional nominations for his direction of Half a Sixpence, Mame and Same Time, Next Year.

Saks and Simon had a somewhat fiery relationship—in 1993 Saks was replaced on the musical adaptation of Simon’s The Goodbye Girl during a pre-Broadway run in Chicago. When the show arrived on the Great White Way directed by Michael Kidd and starring Martin Short and Bernadette Peters, it flopped. Saks and Simon did later continue a social, if not a working, relationship.

Saks’ screen directing credits include The Odd Couple, Cactus Flower (for which Goldie Hawn won an Oscar), Mame, Brighton Beach Memoirs and A Fine Romance.

The last show Saks helmed on Broadway was 1997’s Barrymore, for which Christopher Plummer won the Tony for his performance.

Saks was previously married to stage and screen star Bea Arthur, who he met at the New School. He is survived by his and Arthur’s two sons, Matthew and Daniel; his wife, the former Keren Ettlinger; their daughter, Annabelle; and three grandchildren.