Neil Simon, Broadway's master of comedy, dies at 91
NEW YORK (AP) - 脚本家 Neil Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Couple," ''Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy 支配するd Broadway for １０年間s, has died. He was 91.
Simon died 早期に Sunday of 複雑化s from 肺炎 at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, said 法案 Evans, a longtime friend and 広報担当者 for Shubert Organization theaters.
In the second half of the 20th century, Simon was the American theater's most successful and prolific 脚本家, often chronicling middle class 問題／発行するs and 恐れるs. Starting with "Come Blow Your Horn" in 1961 and continuing into the next century, he rarely stopped working on a new play or musical. His 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of credits is staggering.
FILE- In this Sept. 22, 1994, とじ込み／提出する photo, american 脚本家 Neil Simon answers questions during an interview in Seattle, Wash. Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy 支配するd Broadway for １０年間s, died on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018. He was 91. (AP Photo/Gary Stuart, とじ込み／提出する)
The theater world quickly 嘆く／悼むd his death , 含むing Tony Award-winning actor and 脚本家 Harvey Fierstein, who tweeted that Simon "could 令状 a joke that would make you laugh, define the character, the 状況／情勢, and even the world's problems."
Matthew Broderick, who in 1983 made his Broadway debut in Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and his movie debut in Simon's "Max Dugan Returns," 追加するd: "I 借りがある him a career. The theater has lost a brilliantly funny, unthinkably wonderful writer. And even after all this time, I feel I have lost a 助言者, a father 人物／姿／数字, a 深い 影響（力） in my life and work."
For seven months in 1967, he had four 生産／産物s running at the same time on Broadway: "Barefoot in the Park," ''The 半端物 Couple," ''甘い Charity," and "The 星／主役にする-Spangled Girl."
Even before he 開始する，打ち上げるd his theater career, he made history as one of the famed stable of writers for comedian Sid Caesar that also 含むd Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.
Simon was the 受取人 of four Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy 中心 栄誉（を受ける）s (1995), four Writers Guild of America Awards and an American Comedy Awards Lifetime 業績／成就 栄誉（を受ける）. In 1983, he had a Broadway theater 指名するd after him when the Alvin was rechristened the Neil Simon Theatre.
In 2006, he won the 示す Twain Prize for American Humor, which 栄誉（を受ける）s work that draws from the American experience. The previous year had seen a popular 復活 of "The 半端物 Couple," 再会させるing Nathan 小道／航路 and Matthew Broderick after their enormous success in "The 生産者s" several years earlier.
In a 1997 interview with The Washington 地位，任命する, Simon 反映するd on his success: "I know that I have reached the pinnacle of rewards. There's no more money anyone can 支払う／賃金 me that I need. There are no awards they can give me that I 港／避難所't won. I have no 推論する／理由 to 令状 another play except that I am alive and I like to do it," he said.
Simon had a rare つまずく in the 落ちる of 2009, when a Broadway 復活 of his "Brighton Beach Memoirs" の近くにd 突然の after only nine 業績／成果s because of poor ticket sales. It was to have run in repertory with Simon's "Broadway Bound," which was also 取り消すd.
The bespectacled, 穏やかな-looking Simon (述べるd in a New York Times magazine profile as looking like an accountant or librarian who dressed "just this 味方する of 淡褐色") was a relentless writer - and rewriter.
"I am most alive and most 実行するd sitting alone in a room, hoping that those words forming on the paper in the Smith-Corona will be the first perfect play ever written in a 選び出す／独身 草案," Simon wrote in the introduction to one of the many anthologies of his plays.
He was a meticulous joke smith, peppering his plays, 特に the 早期に ones, with comic one-liners and humorous 状況／情勢s that critics said いつかs （機の）カム at the expense of character and believability. No 事柄. For much of his career, audiences embraced his work, which often 焦点（を合わせる）d on middle-class, 都市の life, many of the 陰謀（を企てる）s drawn from his own personal experience.
"I don't 令状 social and political plays because I've always thought the family was the microcosm of what goes on in the world," he told The Paris Review in 1992.
Simon received his first Tony Award in 1965 as best author - a 部類 now discontinued - for "The 半端物 Couple," although the comedy lost the best-play prize to Frank D. Gilroy's "The 支配する Was Roses." He won a best-play Tony 20 years later for "Biloxi Blues." In 1991, "Lost in Yonkers" recei ved both the Tony and the Pulitzer Prize. And there was a special 業績／成就 Tony, too, in 1975.
Simon's own life 人物／姿／数字d most prominently in what became known as his "Brighton Beach" trilogy - "Brighton Beach Memoirs," ''Biloxi Blues" and "Broadway Bound" - which many consider his finest 作品. In them, Simon's alter ego, Eugene Morris Jerome, makes his way from childhood to the U.S. Army to finally, on the 瀬戸際 of adulthood, a budding career as a writer.
Simon was born Marvin Neil Simon in New York and was raised in the Bronx and Washington 高さs. He was a 不景気-時代 child, his father, Irving, a 衣料品-産業 salesman. He was raised mostly by his strong-willed mother, Mamie, and 助言者d by his older brother, Danny, who 愛称d his younger sibling, Doc.
Simon …に出席するd New York University and the University of Colorado. After serving in the 軍の in 1945 and 1946, he began 令状ing with his brother for 無線で通信する in 1948, and then for television, a period in their lives chronicled in Simon's 1993 play, "Laughter on the 23rd 床に打ち倒す."
The brothers wrote for such classic 1950s television series as "Your Show of Shows," 90 minutes of live, 初めの comedy starring Caesar and Imogene Coca, and later for "The Phil Silvers Show," in which the popular comedian portrayed the conniving Army Sgt. Ernie Bilko.
Yet Simon grew 不満な with television 令状ing and the 網状組織 制限s that …を伴ってd it. Out of his 失望／欲求不満 （機の）カム "Come Blow Your Horn," which starred Hal March and 過密な住居 Berlinger as two brothers (not unlike Danny and Neil Simon) trying to 人物／姿／数字 out what to do with their lives. The comedy ran for more than a year on Broadway. An audience member is said to have died on 開始 night.
But it was his second play, "Barefoot in the Park," that really put Simon on the 地図／計画する. 批判的に 井戸／弁護士席-received, the 1963 comedy, directed by マイク Nichols, 関心d the tribulations of a pair of newlyweds played by Elizabeth Ashley and Robert Redford, who lived on the t op 床に打ち倒す of a New York brownstone.
Simon 固く結び付けるd that success two years later with "The 半端物 Couple," a comedy about bickering roommates: Oscar, a gruff, slovenly sportswriter, and Felix, a neat, fussy photographer. Walter Matthau, as Oscar, and Art Carney, as Felix, starred on Broadway, with Matthau and Jack Lemmon playing the 役割s in a successful movie 見解／翻訳／版. Jack Klugman and Tony Randall appeared in the TV series, which ran on ABC from 1970-1975. A 女性（の） 行う／開催する／段階 見解／翻訳／版 was done on Broadway in 1985 with Rita Moreno as Olive (Oscar) and Sally Struthers as Florence (Felix). It was 生き返らせるd again as a TV series from 2015-17, starring Matthew Perry.
The play remains one of Simon's most 持続する and popular 作品. Nathan 小道／航路 as Oscar and Matthew Broderick as Felix starred in a 復活 that was one of the biggest 攻撃する，衝突するs of the 2005-2006 Broadway season.
Besides "甘い Charity" (1966), which starred Gwen Verdon as a goodhearted dance-hall hostess, and "約束s, 約束s" (1968), based on Billy Wilder's film "The Apartment," Simon wrote the 調書をとる／予約するs for several other musicals.
"Little Me" (1962), adapted from Patrick Dennis' best-selling spoof of show-biz autobiographies, featured a hardworking Sid Caesar in seven different 役割s. "They're Playing Our Song" (1979), which had music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, ran for more than two years. But a musical 見解／翻訳／版 of Simon's movie "The Goodbye Girl," starring ツバメ Short and Bernadette Peters, had only a short run in 1993.
Many of his plays were turned into films 同様に. Besides "The 半端物 Couple," he wrote the screenplays for movie 見解／翻訳／版s of "Barefoot in the Park," ''The 日光 Boys," ''The 囚人 of Second Avenue" and more.
Simon also wrote 初めの screenplays, the best known 存在 "The Goodbye Girl," starring Richard Dreyfuss as a struggling actor, and "The Heartbreak Kid," which featured Charles Grodin as a recently married man, lusting to 減少（する） his new wife for a blonde goddess played by Cybill Shep herd.
In his later years, Simon had more difficulty on Broadway. After the success of "Lost in Yonkers," which starred Mercedes Ruehl as a gentle, simple-minded woman controlled by her domineering mother (Irene 価値（がある）), the 脚本家 had a string of financially 不成功の plays 含むing "Jake's Women," ''Laughter on the 23rd 床に打ち倒す" and "提案s." Simon even went off-Broadway with "London 控訴" in 1995 but it didn't run long either.
"The Dinner Party," a comedy 始める，決める in Paris about husbands and ex-wives, was a modest 攻撃する，衝突する in 2000, まず第一に／本来 because of the box-office strength of its two 星／主役にするs, Henry Winkler and John Ritter. A 攻撃する，衝突する 復活 of "約束s, 約束s" in 2010 starred Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes.
Perhaps Simon's most 悪名高い 生産／産物 was the 批判的に panned "Rose's 窮地," which opened at off-Broadway's nonprofit Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2003. Its 星／主役にする, Mary Tyler Moore, walked out of the show during preview 業績／成果s after receiving a 公式文書，認める from the 脚本家 非難するing her 業績／成果. Moore was 取って代わるd by her understudy.
He wrote two memoirs, "Rewrites" (1996) and "The Play Goes On" (1999). They were 連合させるd into "Neil Simon's Memoirs."
Simon was married five times, twice to the same woman. His first wife, Joan Baim, died of 癌 in 1973, after 20 years of marriage. They had two daughters, Ellen and Nancy, who 生き残る him. Simon dealt with her death in "一時期／支部 Two" (1977), telling the story of a widower who starts もう一度.
The 脚本家 then married actress Marsha Mason, who had appeared in his 行う／開催する／段階 comedy "The Good Doctor" and who went on to 星／主役にする in several films written by Simon 含むing "The Goodbye Girl," ''The Cheap 探偵，刑事," ''一時期／支部 Two," ''Only When I Laugh" and "Max Dugan Returns." They 離婚d in 1982.
The 脚本家 was married to his third wife, Diane Lander, twice - once in 1987-1988 and again in 1990-1998. Simon 可決する・採択するd Lander's daughter, Bryn, from a previous marriage. Simon married his fourth wife, ac tress Elaine Joyce, in 1999. He also is 生き残るd by three grandchildren and one 広大な／多数の／重要な-grandson.
"I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う I shall keep on 令状ing in a vain search for that perfect play. I hope I will keep my equilibrium and sense of humor when I'm told I 港／避難所't 達成するd it," Simon once said about his voluminous 生産（高） of work. "At any 率, the trip has been wonderful. As George and Ira Gershwin said, 'They Can't Take That Away From Me.'"
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FILE- In this Jan. 29, 1978, とじ込み／提出する photo Neil Simon, Michael Douglas and Herbert Ross 提起する／ポーズをとる after Simon and Ross each won awards during the Golden Globe 儀式 in Los Angeles. Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy 支配するd Broadway for １０年間s, died on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018. He was 91. (AP Photo, とじ込み／提出する)
FILE- In this April 21, 2008, とじ込み／提出する pho to Neil Simon, 中心, his wife Elaine Joyce, left, and Lucie Arnaz 提起する／ポーズをとる for a picture at the 歓迎会 for the Eugene O'Neill Theater 中心's Monte Cristo Award in New York. Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy 支配するd Broadway for １０年間s, died on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018. He was 91. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, とじ込み／提出する)
FILE- In this July 2, 1977, とじ込み／提出する photo, 脚本家 Neil Simon, 権利, 提起する／ポーズをとるs for a photo on the 始める，決める of "The Cheap 探偵，刑事" with Dom DeLuise. Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Co uple," "Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy 支配するd Broadway for １０年間s, died on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018. He was 91. (AP Photo, とじ込み／提出する)
FILE- In this Nov. 23, 1981, とじ込み／提出する photo 脚本家 Neil Simon, left, and actor James Coco 提起する／ポーズをとる for a photo in New York during the New York 告示 of a Broadway bound musical comedy, "Little Me." Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach " trilogy 支配するd Broadway for １０年間s, died on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018. He was 91. (AP Photo/Lederhandler, とじ込み／提出する)
FILE- In this Dec. 29, 1964, とじ込み／提出する photo american 脚本家 Neil Simon, 37, is photographed in 前線 of his typewriter in New York. Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy 支配するd Broadway for １０年間s, died on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018. He was 91. (AP Photo/Dan Grossi, とじ込み／提出する)
FILE - In a June 14, 2012 とじ込み／提出する photo, Neil Simon …に出席するs the 開始 night 業績／成果 of the Broadway play "Harvey" in New York. Neil Simon, the 脚本家 behind such comedic 攻撃する，衝突するs such as "The 半端物 Couple" and "Plaza 控訴," died 早期に Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018 of 複雑化s from 肺炎 in a Manhattan hospital, によれば 法案 Evans, Simon's longtime friend and the Shubert Organization director of マスコミ relations. He was 91. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, とじ込み／提出する)
