Neil Simon, Playwright And Wit, Dies At 91
JTA
— Playwright Neil Simon, known for such Broadway hits as “The Odd Couple,” “Barefoot in the Park,” and “Lost in Yonkers,” has died.
Simon, who earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, died overnight Saturday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City from complications with pneumonia at the age of 91.
Simon, who became known for his cutting wit, began his career in television, on the writing staff for Sid Caesar for “Your Show of Shows,” working with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Larry Gelbart, and later wrote for “The Phil Silvers Show.”
In 1961, his first play “Come Blow Your Horn,” hit Broadway. In 1966 he had four plays running on Broadway at the same time. During his career he wrote more than 30 plays and about the same amount of movie screenplays, some original and most adaptions of his plays.
Most of his plays revolved around middle-class Jews from New York, and the family issues that plagued them. The themes of his plays include romance, adultery, divorce, sibling rivalry, cancer and fear of aging.
He gained additional fame in the 1980s with his semi-autobiographical trilogy: “Brighton Beach Memoirs” (1983), “Biloxi Blues” (1985), and “Broadway Bound” (1986).
In 1991 he won both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for “Lost in Yonkers,” another autobiographical comedy.
Simon was born in New York to Irving Simon, a garment salesman, and Mamie (Levy) Simon, a homemaker. His parents had what he described as a “tempestuous marriage,” in which his father left the family at least eight times, and he said took refuge in movie theaters to escape his troubles at home. Those troubles also inspired him to become a writer, which he said helped him to become independent of emotional family issues.
He was married five times: to dancer Joan Baim, who died of cancer (1953–1973), actress Marsha Mason (1973–1983), twice to actress Diane Lander (1987–1988 and 1990–1998), and to actress Elaine Joyce (1999-2018).
Neil Simon was born on July 4, 1927, in The Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents. His father, Irving Simon, was a garment salesman, and his mother, Mamie (Levy) Simon, was mostly a homemaker.[4] Simon had one older brother by eight years, television writer and comedy teacher Danny Simon. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan during the period of the Great Depression, graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School when he was sixteen, where he was nicknamed “Doc” and described as extremely shy in the school yearbook.[5]:39
Simon’s childhood was difficult and mostly unhappy due to his parents’ “tempestuous marriage” and financial hardship caused by the Depression.[3]:1 He would sometimes block out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears at night.[6] His father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional hardship. As a result, Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives, or else their parents took in boarders for some income.[3]:2
During an interview with writer Lawrence Grobel, Simon stated: “To this day I never really knew what the reason for all the fights and battles were about between the two of them … She’d hate him and be very angry, but he would come back and she would take him back. She really loved him.”[7]:378 Simon states that among the reasons he became a writer was to fulfill his need to be independent of such emotional family issues, a need he recognized when he was seven or eight: “I’d better start taking care of myself somehow … It made me strong as an independent person.[7]:378
To escape difficulties at home he often took refuge in movie theaters, where he especially enjoyed comedies with silent stars like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Laurel and Hardy. Simon recalls: “I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud.”
I think part of what made me a comedy writer is the blocking out of some of the really ugly, painful things in my childhood and covering it up with a humorous attitude … do something to laugh until I was able to forget what was hurting.[3]:2
Simon attributes these childhood movies for inspiring him to some day write comedy: “I wanted to make a whole audience fall onto the floor, writhing and laughing so hard that some of them pass out.”[8]:1 He appreciated Chaplin’s ability to make people laugh and made writing comedy his long-term goal, and also saw it as a way to connect with people. “I was never going to be an athlete or a doctor.”[7]:379 He began creating comedy for which he got paid while still in high school, when at the age of fifteen, Simon and his brother created a series of comedy sketches for employees at an annual department store event. And to help develop his writing skill, he often spent three days a week at the library reading books by famous humorists such as Mark Twain, Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman and S. J. Perelman.[5]:218
Soon after graduating from high school, he signed up with the Army Air Force Reserve at New York University, and was eventually sent to Colorado as a corporal. It was during those years in the Reserve that Simon began writing, starting as a sports editor. He was assigned to Lowry Air Force Base during 1945 and attended the University of Denver[1] from 1945 to 1946.[1][3]:2
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