An original Saturday Night Live writer, Alan has won five Emmy Awards for his work in television, which also includes It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (which he co-created and produced), The Late Show with David Letterman and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
A frequent guest on all the late-night talk shows, Alan’s theatrical contributions include his collaboration with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award winning play 700 Sundays, Martin Short’s Broadway hit Fame Becomes Me, and six off-Broadway plays including Bunny Bunny – Gilda Radner: A Sort of Romantic Comedy, which he adapted from his best-selling book.
Taking to the stage himself, Alan is an ensemble performer at New York’s Triad Theater in Celebrity Autobiography — and is also a sought-after keynote speaker.
All told, Alan has written eleven books including his cultural memoir titled Laugh Lines – My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier, published by Abrams Books; the 2006 Thurber Prize winning novel The Other Shulman; the popular children’s book Our Tree Named Steve; and a parody of the Haggadah — For This We Left Egypt? which he wrote with Dave Barry and Adam Mansbach. He has also penned a best-selling e-book, From My Bottom Drawer.
Alan’s humor has appeared in such diverse publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Op-Ed page, The Huffington Post, Air Mail Weekly, and MAD Magazine.
The co-writer of screenplays for the films Dragnet, North, and The Story of Us, Alan received an honorary doctorate in 2009 from the State University of New York. The following year, the Writers Guild of America East honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for the diversity of his body of work.
In addition to talk shows, Alan has appeared in episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Law & Order, and can be seen in the documentary The Last Laugh about humor and the Holocaust; Judd Apatow’s Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling (HBO), Gilbert about the life of Gilbert Gottfried, and the Emmy nominated CNN documentary he executive produced titled Love, Gilda.
Alan is currently working on numerous projects, including adapting director Barry Sonnenfeld’s memoir Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother as a feature film for Castle Rock Entertainment, Here Today, a film he co-wrote with Billy Crystal (who also directs and stars alongside Tiffany Haddish) can be seen on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, among other platforms.
But the production that Alan is most proud of is the one he co-created with his wife Robin, their three children and five grandchildren.
