Neil Simon

Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Selma Diamond), and The Phil Silvers Show, which ran from 1955 to 1959.


His first produced play was Come Blow Your Horn (1961). It took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two more successes, Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965). He won a Tony Award for the latter. It made him a national celebrity and "the hottest new playwright on Broadway".^[1] From the 1960s to the 1980s, he wrote for stage and screen; some of his screenplays were based on his own works for the stage. His style ranged from farce to romantic comedy to more serious dramatic comedy. Overall, he garnered 17 Tony nominations and won three awards. In 1966, he had four successful productions running on Broadway at the same time and, in 1983, he became the only living playwright to have a New York theatre, the Neil Simon Theatre, named in his honor.

Personal life[edit]

Simon was married five times. For 20 years (1953–73), he was married to Joan Baim, a Martha Graham dancer; they had two daughters. Simon became a widower in 1973 when Baim died of bone cancer at age 41. One daughter, Ellen, wrote a semi-autobiographical play which was subsequently filmed as Moonlight and Valentino. Simon married actress Marsha Mason (1973–1983), that same year. After his divorce from Mason, he married actress Diane Lander two separate times (1987–1988 and 1990–1998). He adopted Lander's daughter from a previous relationship. His subsequent marriage to actress Elaine Joyce in 1999 lasted until his death.^[27]


Simon's nephew is U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon and his niece-in-law is U.S. Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici.^[28]


Simon was on the board of selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.^[29]


In 2004, Simon received a kidney transplant from his long-time friend and publicist Bill Evans.^[30]


Neil Simon died from pneumonia at New York–Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on August 26, 2018, while hospitalized for kidney failure.^[31][32] He was 91 and also had Alzheimer's disease.^[33]