, has died, according to a statement provided by his family. Per the statement, the late screenwriter died March 15 at his Hudson Valley home in upstate New York.
He was 83.Born in Brooklyn, New York, and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh law school, Steinberg turned to comedy writing after life as an attorney did not turn out how he had imagined it would.
It was a dream he often told Brooks about during his regular run-ins with the actor at a Manhattan coffee shop in the 1960s, long before hit the big screen in 1974.It was Brooks who also encouraged Steinberg's career, telling the future Emmy-winner to submit a script for his James Bond-spoofing sitcom The series was canceled, but thanks to Brooks' backing and a vote of confidence in his script, Steinberg quit his hated job at a law firm and started his career as a comedy writer.After taking a few gigs in New York, he moved to Los Angeles, where he was partnered with George Carlin writing for NBC’s comedy-variety series That year, the show’s writers won an Emmy.Brooks later hired Steinberg and Richard Pryor to work on the draft of a screenplay by Andrew Bergman, for a comic Western — then called -- that would eventually become the classic Western spoof starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder.Steinberg’s other films include , and.
His television credits include the CBS comedy, and the special .In addition to his work on-screen, Steinberg taught screenwriting at Johns Hopkins University, the American Film Institute and Long Island University in Brooklyn, where he founded a master’s program known as the TV Writers Studio.
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