Neil Simon, the prolific and Pulitzer Prize-winning US playwright celebrated as the king of comedy who won more Oscar and Tony nominations combined than any other showbiz writer, died on Sunday. He was 91.<\/b>
\nNeil Simon, the prolific and Pulitzer Prize-winning US playwright celebrated as the king of comedy who won more Oscar and Tony nominations combined than any other showbiz writer, died on Sunday. He was 91.
The brains behind more than 30 plays, 20 screenplays and five musicals, Time magazine dubbed him the \u00ab\u00a0patron saint of laughter.\u00a0\u00bb
Many of his works are classics of 20th century American theater and Simon has been credited with playing a seminal role — along with film director Woody Allen — in re-crafting US humor in the 1960s and 1970s.
His influence has been felt through the generations, The New York Times drawing a line between Simon’s early comedies and the character-based comedy in the 1990s hit sitcom \u00ab\u00a0Seinfeld.\u00a0\u00bb
Longtime friend Bill Evans announced his death early Sunday in a New York hospital of complications from pneumonia.
His wife, a daughter and grandson were at his bedside, Evans told AFP. He had represented Simon for three decades from 1976 to 2006.
Simon was the author of critically acclaimed and commercial hits such as \u00ab\u00a0Barefoot in the Park\u00a0\u00bb (1963) \u00ab\u00a0The Odd Couple\u00a0\u00bb (1965) \u00ab\u00a0The Sunshine Boys\u00a0\u00bb (1974) and \u00ab\u00a0Lost in Yonkers\u00a0\u00bb (1990).
Much of his work, peppered with witty one-liners, explored the everyday struggles of the middle-classes and inter-family conflict, influenced by his troubled upbringing during the Great Depression.
\u00ab\u00a0The good mechanic knows how to take a car apart; I love to take the human mind apart and see how it works. Behavior is absolutely the most interesting thing I can write about. You put that behavior in conflict and you’re in business,\u00a0\u00bb Simon told The Paris Review in 1992.
– ‘Odd couple’ –
\u00ab\u00a0Barefoot in the Park\u00a0\u00bb turned Robert Redford into a star. Redford also appeared in the 1967 hit movie version opposite Jane Fonda.
Other plays that went on to become major Hollywood movies included \u00ab\u00a0The Goodbye Girl\u00a0\u00bb in 1977 that won Richard Dreyfuss an Oscar for best leading actor and \u00ab\u00a0The Odd Couple\u00a0\u00bb in 1968 about two friends sharing an apartment starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.
\u00ab\u00a0Dilemma is the key word. It is always a dilemma, not a situation,\u00a0\u00bb Simon told The Paris Review.
Born on July 4,1927 in the Bronx, he grew up in northern Manhattan, the son of a skirt-chasing salesman who left the family home multiple times, forcing his mother to rent out her room to make ends meet.
Simon served in the military and then worked with his older brother Danny on producing jokes for television and radio scripts.
\u00ab\u00a0Barefoot in the Park,\u00a0\u00bb about a bickering couple inspired by his first marriage, and \u00ab\u00a0The Odd Couple\u00a0\u00bb that followed, were credited with capturing the zeitgeist of the 1960s.
\u00ab\u00a0He was a writer and an artist who couldn’t stop going inside of himself and finding new things. Like any creative artist, there was a compulsion to explore and go deeper,\u00a0\u00bb Evans told AFP.
\u00ab\u00a0He found a connection in all of us,\u00a0\u00bb he added.
\u00ab\u00a0The phrase ‘odd couple’ is now used in so many different contexts. It was a privilege knowing him.\u00a0\u00bb
– ‘Americana’ –
In the 1960s, at the height of his success, with four plays running on Broadway, Simon was earning about $60,000 a week and easily double that thanks to royalties, The New Yorker reported in 2010.
In the 1980s, he produced the semi-autobiographical trilogy of plays \u00ab\u00a0Brighton Beach Memoirs,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Biloxi Blues\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0Broadway Bound\u00a0\u00bb starring a young Matthew Broderick as the playwright’s alter ego Eugene Jerome.
Broderick is now a celebrated stage actor married to film star Sarah Jessica Parker. Evans called the trilogy a \u00ab\u00a0slice of Americana.\u00a0\u00bb
Simon described his craft as catharsis.
\u00ab\u00a0It’s like analysis without going to the analyst. The play becomes your analysis,\u00a0\u00bb he told The Paris Review
In 1991, Simon achieved the highest honor in US drama, winning the Pulitzer Prize for \u00ab\u00a0Lost in Yonkers,\u00a0\u00bb an autobiographical comedy about a mother and her daughter that was his last big splash on Broadway.
Such was his wealth that he produced many of his plays and in 1983 he was given the rare accolade of having a New York stage, the Neil Simon Theatre, named in his honor.
In addition to his Pulitzer, he won a Golden Globe and three Tonys. He chalked up 17 Tony nominations and four Oscar nods.
He was married five times to four different women — he married his third wife twice — and had three children.<\/p>\n

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