"Get Smart" producer Leonard B. Stern dies

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Leonard B. Stern, the prolific writer and producer whose credits included "The Honeymooners," "Get Smart" and the word game "Mad Libs," died Tuesday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87.

The three-time Emmy Award winner also created "McMillan and Wife," the breezy crime drama starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James that aired on NBC from 1971-77.

Stern penned "Abbott & Costello in the Foreign Legion" (1950) and a pair of Ma & Pa Kettle films before his stint on "The Jackie Gleason Show," where he wrote "Honeymooners" sketches for the variety show and the series it spawned.

Stern also was involved in publishing. "Mad Libs" -- a party game in which one player prompts another for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story, hopefully with funny results -- was invented in 1953 by Stern and Roger Price.

The two and partner Larry Sloan went on to form Price Stern Sloan, which published the first Mad Libs book in 1958.  The company was purchased by Putnam Berkley in 1993.

Stern's survivors include his wife of 55 years, actress Gloria Stroock, who played Hudson's secretary on "McMillan & Wife."

LAMediaWatch.com