Neil+Simon

=Neil Simon=

Neil Simon, 1966

**Neil Simon** (born July 4, 1927) is an American playwright and screenwriter. His numerous Broadway successes have led to his work being among the most regularly performed in the world. Simon was born **Marvin Neil Simon** on July 4, 1927 in The Bronx, New York City to Mamie and Irving Simon, a garment salesman. He was their second son and he grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan in the Great Depression. His father would frequently leave the family, casting financial and emotional woes on the family. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School and graduated at the age of sixteen. He briefly attended New York University from 1944 to 1945, where he was enlisted in the Army Air Force Reserve training program. He was assigned to Lowry Air Force Base in 1945 and attended the University of Denver from 1945 to 1946. He was a sports editor for the military magazine //Rev-Meter//. In 1946, he was discharged as a corporal. Two years later, he quit his job as a mailroom clerk in the Warner Brothers offices in Manhattan to write radio and television scripts with his brother Danny Simon, including a tutelage under radio humourist Goodman Ace when Ace ran a short-lived writing workshop for CBS. They wrote for the radio show //The Robert Q. Lewis Show// and for the television show The Phil Silvers Show. Their revues for Camp Tamiment in Pennsylvania in the early 1950s caught the attention of Sid Caesar, who hired the duo for his popular TV comedy series //Your Show of Shows//. Simon later incorporated their experiences into his play //Laughter on the 23rd Floor//. His work won him two Emmy Award nominations and the appreciation of Phil Silvers, who hired him to write for //Sergeant Bilko// in 1959. In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, //Come Blow Your Horn//, opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where it ran for 678 performances. Six weeks after its closing, his second production, the musical //Little Me// opened to mixed reviews. Although it failed to attract a large audience, it earned Simon his first Tony Award nomination. Overall, he has garnered seventeen Tony nominations and won three. He also won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for //Lost In Yonkers.// In 1966 Simon had four shows running on Broadway at the same time: //Sweet Charity//, //The Star-Spangled Girl//, //The Odd Couple//, and //Barefoot in the Park//. His professional association with producer Emanuel Azenberg began with //The Sunshine Boys// in 1972 and continued with //The Good Doctor//, //God's Favorite//, //Chapter Two//, //They're Playing Our Song//, //I Ought to Be in Pictures//, //Brighton Beach Memoirs//, //Biloxi Blues//, //Broadway Bound//, //Jake's Women//, //The Goodbye Girl//, and //Laughter on the 23rd Floor//, among others. Simon also has written screenplays for more than twenty films. These include adaptations of his own plays and original work too, including //The Out-of-Towners//, //Murder by Death// and //The Goodbye Girl//. He has received four Best Screenplay Academy Award nominations. Simon has been conferred with two //honoris causa// degrees; a Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University and a Doctor of Laws from Williams College. He is the namesake of the legitimate Broadway theater the Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, and an honorary member of the Walnut Street Theatre's board of trustees. Cited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Simon

Plays and Screenplays
Simon has written 35 plays and 34 screenplays. Some of the most popular are...
 * //Come Blow Your Horn//
 * //Barefoot in the Park//
 * //The Odd Couple//
 * //Sweet Charity//
 * //Plaza Suite//
 * //The Last of the Red Hot Lovers//
 * //Promises, Promises//
 * //The Good Doctor//
 * //The Dinner Party//
 * //The Heartbreak Kid//

as well as many others.

Links

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Simon
 * http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc43.html
 * http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0800319/