Barry Blaustein and guest at Netflix’s “Being Eddie” Los Angeles premiere held at Tudum Theater on November 12, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chad Salvador/Variety via Getty Images)
Variety via Getty Images
Barry Blaustein, a writer who collaborated with Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live and his Coming to America and Nutty Professor movies, has died.
Blaustein died Tuesday, his longtime employer, Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, announced (via The Hollywood Reporter). He was 71. THR reported that Blaustein, who had been battling Parkinson’s disease since 2017, also learned in April that he had stage four pancreatic cancer.
According to the Chapman University professor’s bio page, Blaustein and fellow SNL head writer/supervising producer David Sheffield wrote and developed Murphy’s classic characters Gumby, Buckwheat, Mr. Robinson and Velvet Jones.
“Barry understood what made comedy function better than anyone I know,” Dodge College Dean Stephen Galloway said in a statement (via the Los Angeles Times). “He knew that it includes darkness as well as light. And yet it was the light that filled his last years. Even as he declined with Parkinson’s, he showed a positivity that always stunned me. He’ll be remembered as a wonderful writer, but an even more wonderful human being.”
Born Barry Wayne Blaustein on Sept. 10, 1954, in Long Island, N.Y., Blaustein’s first screen credit came in 1979 as a writer for The Mike Douglas Show, where he contributed to 21 episodes through 1981.
Blaustein began writing on SNL in 1980 and worked on 55 episodes from Seasons 6 through 10 in 1984. Blaustein is also a credited writer in the 2019 episode where Murphy returned to host and reprised some of his most iconic SNL characters. Blaustein served as SNL’s supervising producer in Seasons 8 and 9 of the show, from 1983-84.
After SNL, Blaustein was a co-writer on Murphy’s films Coming to America (1988), Boomerang (1992), The Nutty Professor (1996), Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000) and Coming 2 America (2021). Blaustein also appeared in Netflix’s 2025 Murphy documentary Being Eddie and also attended the film’s Los Angeles premiere in November.
In addition to his film work with Murphy, Blaustein was a co-writer on Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment and 2005’s big-screen remake of the TV classic The Honeymooners.
Barry Blaustein Won Acclaim For His Wrestling Documentary ‘Beyond The Mat’
In addition to his work as a comedy writer, Blaustein directed two documentaries and two feature films. His first documentary, 1999’s Beyond the Mat — which delved into the world of professional wrestling — earned Blaustein a Directors Guild of America nomination for Outstanding Achievement in a Documentary.
In 2009, Blaustein directed the documentary Guys and Divas: Battle of the High School Musicals, which focused on the intensity that went into three high school musicals in Southern Indiana.
TORONTO, ON – SEPTEMBER 15: Actors Sarah Silverman, Judy Greer, Michael C. Hall, Taraji P. Henson, actor Ron Rifkin and director Barry Blaustein from “Peep World” pose for a portrait during the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in Guess Portrait Studio at Hyatt Regency Hotel on September 15, 2010 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Matt Carr/Getty Images)
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Blaustein also directed the 2005 comedy satire The Ringer, starring Johnny Knoxville, Katherine Heigl and Brian Cox, as well as the 2010 comedy drama Peep World, starring Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman, Judy Greer, Ron Rifkin, Rainn Wilson and Taraji P. Henson.
Blaustein is survived by his wife, Debra, his children, Corey and Kasey and a granddaughter.