Neil Simon

Known for WritingBorn 1927-07-04Died 2018-08-26The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA

Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received three Tony Awards, and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. 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". 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Neil Simon, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.Read more

Movies & web series

Dearest Enemy

The Great Waltz

Caesar's Writers

Drôle de couple

Sonny Boys

The Sid Caesar Collection: Inside the Writer's Room

The Oddball Couple

Andy & Norman

Plaza Suite

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions: America's Greatest Love Stories

Frasier

Inside the Actors Studio

The Odd Couple

Jack Lemmon: America's Everyman

The Kennedy Center Honors

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

The Odd Couple

Ein seltsames Paar

Sid Caesar Collection: Buried Treasures - The Legend of Sid Caesar

The Sid Caesar Collection: The Magic of Live TV

The Sid Caesar Collection: Creating the Comedy

Murder by Death

The Desert Song

CBS News Sunday Morning

Felix und Oskar

Barefoot in the Park

The Goodbye Girl

I Ought to Be in Pictures

The Sunshine Boys

Sweet Charity

The Out-of-Towners

The Dick Cavett Show

Murder By Death - A Conversation with Neil Simon

Walter Matthau: Diamond in the Rough

Brighton Beach Memoirs

Jake's Women

Broadway Bound

Max Dugan Returns

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Pitch

The Heartbreak Kid

The Odd Couple II

Lost in Yonkers

The Merv Griffin Show

Babes in Toyland

The Cheap Detective

Rumors

Biloxi Blues