Mickey Rose Dies Of Cancer At 77: Legendary 'Bananas' Screenwriter Told Collaborator Woody Allen Death Meant 'No More Malteds'

Mickey Rose, the brilliant screenwriter who co-wrote the classic Woody Allen films "Bananas," "Take The Money and Run" and "What's Up Tiger Lily?" died Sunday at his home in Beverly Hills, according to the Los Angeles.

The cause of Rose's death was cancer.  According to his daughter Jennifer he was diagnosed with the disease in January.

Allen, who was a childhood friend of Rose, remembered the screenwriter as a man who loved his malted milkshakes.

"Mickey was one of the funniest humans I know, a true original and a total eccentric and a wonderful first baseman," Allen said in a statement his biographer Eric Lax released earlier this week. "We played a lot of baseball together. Once, when I asked him what death meant to him he said, 'no more malteds.'"

Mickey Rose, who was born Michael Rose on May 20, 1935, was the son of a single mother, Sylvia Subin. Rose's father left before he was born.

Woody (who was known as Allan Konigsberg at the time) and Mickey grew up in different parts of Brooklyn, originally meeting each other in a high school art class.

The friendship soon blossomed and Allen and Rose often skipped school to go watch Ingmar Bergman films or attend Brooklyn Dodgers games at Ebbets Field.

"They were just very good friends with similar sensibilities, who laughed at the same things and loved to make each other laugh," Lax said Wednesday.

After finding box office success with his screenplay collaborations with Allen, Rose moved to Beverly Hills, Calif., where he went on to become a writer for "The Smothers Brothers," "All in the Family," "The Odd Couple" and "The Tonight Show."

But h will probably be best remembered for his contributions to the scripts of three Woody Allen classics.

"There was outright laughter sometimes as we worked," Rose once said of his creative process with Allen.