Called the West Coast Woody Allen for his cerebral brand of comedy, actor-writer-director Albert Brooks turned down the Billy Crystal role in "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989) precisely because "it read to me like a Woody Allen movie, verbatim. And I thought that was not something I should be in." Though both are tortured insecure geniuses of Hebraic descent who changed their names and abandoned brilliant stand-up careers to make movies, Brooks is by far the slower worker, helming on average only one movie every 3.5 years (six in 21 years), compared to Allen who cranks out at least one picture
