Happy Birthday, Neil Simon

Marvin Neil Simon was born on July 4, 1927, in the Bronx, New York. After attending DeWitt Clinton High School, he briefly attended NYU and the University of Denver before joining the U.S. Army in 1946. His illustrious writing career had its humble beginnings in the army camp newspaper.

When he returned to New York he began working in the Warner Brothers mailroom, but soon abandoned this to write comedy sketches with his brother Danny. In the company of Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Mel Brooks, the brothers wrote for established comedians like Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason and Phil Silvers in radio and television shows of the late ’40s and early ’50s. Success came quickly; Emmy award nominations for his television writing propelled Simon to write for the theater. His earliest hit, “Come Blow Your Horn,” in 1961, launched a long string of Broadway smashes.

He began collecting awards early on—his first Tony came in 1965 for “The Odd Couple”— but actors did well by him too; for example, Richard Dreyfus’s Oscar for “The Goodbye Girl” and Matthew Broderick’s Tony for “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” In fact, it was with the 1983 “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” the first of a trilogy of semi-autobiographical plays, that Simon began to change the critical perception of his career and talent from that of a writer of gags to a poignant and perceptive observer of life. Simon won the Pulitzer Prize for “Lost in Yonkers” in 1991.

With 33 plays and almost as many screenplays to his credit, Simon admits that the writing process doesn’t necessarily get any easier. For his 30th play, “Proposals,” he reflects on the trials and tribulations of writing … and rewriting.

Neil Simon appeared on Charlie Rose’s show in 1997 to discuss his plays, his wives and his life. He expressed some dismay that some critics still considered him a mere jokester, explaining that he feels he helps audiences by “showing them how to look at life in an oblique way that I find funny.” When Rose asked him to write his own epitaph, Simon offered: “He made us laugh, he made us cry, he taught us about life …”

Bill Evans, Simon’s longtime publicist and friend, saved the writer from putting that epitaph to use in 2004. Simon had been suffering with a kidney ailment for some time and receiving regular dialysis treatment weekly when Evans stepped in and donated a kidney to help restore his friend’s health. By way of explanation, Mr. Evans said that his parents raised him to believe that if a loved one is in trouble, you show up.

It’s safe to say that somewhere in American there is a Neil Simon play or movie being shown nearly all the time; and there’s always the Neil Simon Festival to prove the statement. And you can test your knowledge of Neil Simon here.

Actor Jack Lemmon had this to say of Simon’s characters: “They have foibles. They have faults. But, they are human beings. They are not all bad or all good; they are people we know."