Barry Blaustein, a Saturday Night Live writer, frequent Eddie Murphy collaborator, and director of the controversial wrestling film Beyond the Mat, has died.
Videos by Suggest
Blaustein passed away on May 12 at his home in Los Angeles, per an announcement made by Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, where the 71-year-old was a long-serving professor. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in mid-2017. He was recently told he had stage four pancreatic cancer.
Blaustein, a Long Island native, landed at Saturday Night Live in 1980, right in the thick of a chaotic season. Jean Doumanian had replaced Lorne Michaels as producer, and things behind the scenes were, to put it mildly, tense. Despite the drama, Blaustein found a creative soulmate in fellow new writer David Sheffield, kicking off a long-lasting partnership.
Meanwhile, a fresh-faced kid named Eddie Murphy also joined the cast. At just 19, he was the show’s youngest member, and Blaustein and Sheffield quickly teamed up with him. This partnership with the young comedian catapulted him to stardom. The trio produced some of SNL‘s most legendary bits, including “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood,” Buckwheat, Gumby, and the ever-so-eloquent pitchman Velvet Jones.
65 Candles 🎂 today for EDDIE MURPHY
— Michael Warburton (@For_Film_Fans) April 3, 2026
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (1983)
“Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood: Summer”
pic.twitter.com/p9yDlyGuh7
Blaustein and Sheffield were promoted to head writers and then supervising producers before leaving Saturday Night Live in 1983. Murphy left the show a year later to focus on his film career. However, he continued to work with the writing duo.
Per IMDb, the pair went on to write some of Murphy’s biggest hits, including Coming to America (1988), Boomerang (1992), and The Nutty Professor (1996) and its sequel, The Klumps (2000), and Coming 2 America (2021).
Barry Blaustein’s Impressive Directing Career Included Both Documentaries and Features
Blaustein also built an impressive directing career. He wrote, directed, produced, and narrated the 1999 documentary Beyond the Mat. The film peeked behind the curtain of the Vince McMahon-led World Wrestling Federation and the even more chaotic Extreme Championship Wrestling. The film was so well-received that it made the Oscar shortlist for best documentary.
To say Barry Blaustein’s “Beyond The Mat” had a huge impact on us would be an understatement, it is in our opinion the definitive pro wrestling documentary. What we didn’t expect is for our love for that film to lead us to a great friendship with Dennis Stamp and to finally be… pic.twitter.com/pp1wYWIQFM
— Absolute Intense Wrestling (@aiwrestling) May 13, 2026
Blaustein’s documentary work also included directing Guys N’ Divas: Battle of the Highschool Musicals (2009). Additionally, he spent two summers helping create the Russian TV comedy Fizruk, or Gym Teacher.
He also directed The Ringer (2005), a comedy about the Special Olympics starring Johnny Knoxville, Brian Cox, and Katherine Heigl. He followed that up with Peep World (2010), a dysfunctional family dramedy with a cast that included Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman, Rainn Wilson, and Ben Schwartz.
He is survived by his wife, Debra, whom he married in 2021, his children, Corey and Kasey, and his granddaughter, Daisy.