Theresa Lucas

Theresa Lucas

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RIP Neil Simon, Prolific American Playwright

neil simon getty images

Decorated playwright Neil Simon has died at age 91.

The dramatist's longtime friend and publicist Bill Evans confirmed Simon passed early Sunday morning (August 26) of complications from pneumonia at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where he was comforted by his wife,  actress Elaine Joyce Simon, and daughters, Ellen and Nancy, during the  final moments of his life.

Born and raised in New York, Simon was  regarded as a prolific American screenwriter among his contemporaries,  with a long-running career spanning from the 1960s through the 1990s. As  a child of the Depression-era, most of the concepts explored in Simon's  work was influenced by his unstable childhood and the financial strains  that affected his parents' turbulent marriage.

Following high  school graduation, Simon joined the Army Air Force Reserve, where began  drafting comedy scripts popular radio and television programs like Your Show of Shows and The Phil Silvers Show in the early to mid-1950s.

In  his lifetime, Simon authored more than 30 plays and several screenplays  — both originals and those adapted from his own canon — including his  Broadway breakout Come Blow Your Horn (1961). He found more success in 1966 after making Broadway history when four of his plays — Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Sweet Charity and The Star-Spangled Girl — ran concurrently.

In 1991, Simon was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his production Lost in Yonkers, which the writer considered one of his deepest works.

Photo: Getty Images



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