I worked with Larry Gelbart on the original Broadway production of "Sly Fox." I was all of 17 and a production assistant to director Arthur Penn; eventually I was entrusted with keeping book during rehearsals, prompting as needed, and especially incorporating Larry's many rewrites so there was one authoritative script.

Starting with the first rehearsal in New York, Larry immediately began rewriting the play. After the first read-through, the whole table turned to compliment him -- and he was gracious and funny, but it was also clear he felt he had work to do. He left, and went to his hotel room to work.

That became the pattern, throughout rehearsals in New York, and the two out-of-town runs. Larry kept changing, refining, nipping, tucking, and sometimes completely reworking scene after scene. He would watch the actors rehearse, and then either leave it alone for a while, or sit at a table in the corner of the rehearsal space, or head back to his hotel to rewrite some more.

Eventually, Larry rewrote the entire play. We famously had only one page (p. 23) left from the day of the first read-through that was still unchanged when the show was frozen before opening. The structure was the same, but whole arcs of scenes and characters had changed. The ending was a 180 degree shift -- with avarice triumphing instead of getting its comeuppance. Why? Because it was a better, funnier ending. It was not the message Larry started out with; yet it was the one that worked. It was always about making it leaner, sharper, finding a better joke or a better version of the same joke, finding whatever played better.

During the out of town runs, in Baltimore and Boston, the cast would often be rehearsing one version of the script during the day while playing a different version at night. When they had Larry's new version ready, it would get put in to the show. Sometimes, it didn't work, and it would be trashed, often immediately. Larry would then, in a few hours, write a "new-new version" (that is what we called it) to be rehearsed, while the cast went back to playing either the "old version" or the "old-old version" on stage. Between rewrites, rehearsals and performances, the company was often juggling three or four versions of certain scenes in their heads. Larry just kept working and working and working and working it -- and he never ran dry. He always had more material, and he was never too attached to his own work, never said it wasn't working because of how the actors were playing it: often, he was the first to say something had to change.

Through it all, he never lost his good humor. He was always fun to be around, and he was always nice to this mewling novice. I am sure he was tearing himself up at times, but this was what he was born to do, and it was the only thing he had ever done.

Those rewrites worked too. "Sly Fox" was a hit on Broadway, and ran for several years. Jack Gilford, who was in the cast, told me that, along with "A Funny Thing Happened...," another Larry Gelbart work, it was the greatest rewrite experience of his entire long career.

Some 25 years after that experience, in Los Angeles, I reconnected with Larry though the PAGE Writers' BBS. I reintroduced myself online and told him that I still had the prompt book from "Sly Fox," complete with all its handwritten changes. Much as I treasured it, I thought he should have it. He graciously invited me to his house in Beverly Hills, and we spent a lovely few hours talking about not just "Sly Fox" and other work of his or someone else's, but about common acquaintances, marriage ("It's the same being married for thirty years as five years, there's just more years of what's the same"); parenting (he had numerous children, and had even raised one of his grandchildren for a while); he was keenly interested in me, my work and my young family, and my path since "Sly Fox." He listened intently as I told him about my father's recent death.

I did give him the prompt book, and as he was flipping through it one of the first things he said was, "I never did find a way to end the first act."

Here was this enormously successful writer, looking at the script of a hit Broadway show of his, expressing regret about one scene, one moment, he just could not lick. Yes, even Larry Gelbart had those. It was a mark of true professionalism and dedication that Larry was always looking to make it better, to make it work.

After he walked me out to my car, we were standing at the end of his driveway, and he was talking about how much Beverly Hills had changed, and not for the better. He looked at two recently-built houses across the street and said, "They just ruined it." Then, he immediately brightened and added, "Well, there it is; we've ended on a kvetch!"

He laughed warmly - at himself and at us standing there - shook my hand, clapped me on the back, thanked me again for the script, and wished me luck in everything.

There was that kind of generosity in everything Larry Gelbart did. Few people of his stature, and with his schedule, would have given me as much personal time as he did. Seen me, maybe; Larry gave more, he gave of himself, just as he gave more in his work, and thus to his audience, more than possibly anyone else in his profession. He was a biting satirist, yet he was never bitter. Even when he wrote from anger, when he was attacking hypocrisy, he did so with that same warmth and generosity toward his audience.

More than anything, I think, Larry wanted us to enjoy our time with him - in person, in a theater, in front of a television. That is why he never stopped making it better and funnier. That is also why we did, and will forever, so deeply enjoy our time spent with Larry Gelbart and his words.

Jonathan Freund lives and sometimes writes in Los Angeles