{"id":63630,"date":"2018-08-27T17:05:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T15:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=63630"},"modified":"2018-08-27T06:47:44","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T04:47:44","slug":"01-05-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=63630","title":{"rendered":"Neil Simon, Playwright And Wit, Dies At 91"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Neil Simon, Playwright And Wit, Dies At 91<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

JTA<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2014 Playwright Neil Simon, known for such Broadway hits as \u201cThe Odd Couple,\u201d \u201cBarefoot in the Park,\u201d and \u201cLost in Yonkers,\u201d has died.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simon, who became\u00a0known for his cutting wit,<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0began his career in television, on the writing staff for Sid Caesar for \u201cYour Show of Shows,\u201d working with \u00a0Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and\u00a0Larry Gelbart<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, and later wrote for \u201cThe Phil Silvers Show.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1961, his first play \u201cCome Blow Your Horn,\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of his\u00a0plays revolved around middle-class Jews from New York, and the family issues that plagued them.\u00a0 The themes of his plays include romance, adultery, divorce, sibling rivalry, cancer and fear of aging.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0He gained additional fame in the 1980s with his semi-autobiographical trilogy: \u201cBrighton Beach Memoirs\u201d (1983), \u201cBiloxi Blues\u201d (1985), and \u201cBroadway Bound\u201d (1986).<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1991 he won both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for \u201cLost in Yonkers,\u201d another autobiographical comedy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201ctempestuous marriage,\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was married five times: to dancer Joan Baim, who died of cancer (1953\u20131973), actress Marsha Mason (1973\u20131983), twice to actress Diane Lander (1987\u20131988 and 1990\u20131998), and to actress Elaine Joyce (1999-2018).<\/span><\/p>\n

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Early years<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Neil Simon was born on July 4, 1927, in\u00a0The Bronx<\/strong><\/span><\/a>,\u00a0New York<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, to\u00a0Jewish<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0parents. His father, Irving Simon, was a garment salesman, and his mother, Mamie (Levy) Simon, was mostly a homemaker.[4]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Simon had one older brother by eight years, television writer and comedy teacher\u00a0Danny Simon<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. He grew up in\u00a0Washington Heights<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, Manhattan during the period of the Great Depression, graduating from\u00a0DeWitt Clinton High School<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0when he was sixteen, where he was nicknamed “Doc” and described as extremely shy in the school yearbook.[5]<\/a><\/sup>:39<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Simon’s childhood was difficult and mostly unhappy due to his parents’ “tempestuous marriage” and financial hardship caused by the Depression.[3]<\/a><\/sup>:1<\/sup>\u00a0He would sometimes block out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears at night.[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0His 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]<\/a><\/sup>:2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0… She’d hate him and be very angry, but he would come back and she would take him back. She really loved him.”[7]<\/a><\/sup>:378<\/sup>\u00a0Simon 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\u00a0… It made me strong as an independent person.[7]<\/a><\/sup>:378<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

To escape difficulties at home he often took refuge in movie theaters, where he especially enjoyed comedies with silent stars like\u00a0Charlie Chaplin<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0Buster Keaton<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0Laurel and Hardy<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. Simon recalls: “I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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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\u00a0… do something to laugh until I was able to forget what was hurting.[3]<\/a><\/sup>:2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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]<\/a><\/sup>:1<\/sup>\u00a0He 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]<\/a><\/sup>:379<\/sup>\u00a0He 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\u00a0Mark Twain<\/strong><\/span><\/a>,<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Robert Benchley<\/strong><\/span><\/a>,\u00a0George S. Kaufman<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>and\u00a0S. J. Perelman<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.[5]<\/a><\/sup>:218<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Soon after graduating from high school, he signed up with the\u00a0Army Air Force Reserve<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0New York University<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, 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\u00a0Lowry Air Force Base<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0during 1945 and attended the\u00a0University of Denver<\/strong><\/span><\/a>[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0from 1945 to 1946.[1]<\/a><\/sup>[3]<\/a><\/sup>:2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Neil Simon, Playwright And Wit, Dies At 91 JTA \u2014 Playwright Neil Simon, known for such Broadway hits as \u201cThe Odd Couple,\u201d \u201cBarefoot in the Park,\u201d and \u201cLost in Yonkers,\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63630"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63641,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63630\/revisions\/63641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}