Who

The bard of boulevard comedy, author of Brighton Beach Memoirs and The Odd Couple, Simon is one of the most prolific and celebrated playwrights in America.

Backstory

Marvin Neil Simon's beginnings in the Bronx were as humble as they come; his father, a traveling salesman, abandoned the family when Neil was a kid. After a stint in the Army, Simon worked in the mailroom at Warner Bros.'s New York office. He quit a couple of years later when he started writing sketches with his older brother Danny, and eventually landed a job on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, where the writing staff also included Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen.

Simon's Broadway debut came in 1961 with Come Blow Your Horn, and he became one of the brightest stars during the decade with a string of hits to his name. His 1963 Barefoot in the Park was an early favorite—and also marked the beginning of Mike Nichols' directorial career—and Simon's 1966 play The Odd Couple was a comedy classic that spawned a famous 1968 Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau movie, two different sitcoms, and assorted other spinoffs. Though he made his name with comedies, he's also showed a talent for darker material. His 1983 autobiographical coming-of-age tale Brighton Beach Memoirs cemented his place in the canon of American theater, and he won a Pulitzer for the 1991 play Lost in Yonkers.

Recently

Simon is an undisputed theater legend, with three Tonys, a Pulitzer, four Oscar nominations, and innumerable Broadway classics to his credit. But he's been in something of a slump in recent years, with his latest works getting decidedly mixed reviews. His 45 Seconds from Broadway in 2001 prompted acerbic Post scribe Michael Riedel to remark that it "lasted about 45 seconds on Broadway." And even revivals of Simon's old favorites haven't gone over terribly well lately. The 2006 version of Barefoot in the Park starring Julia Roberts and directed by Joe Mantello was poorly reviewed, and the much-vaunted 2005 Matthew Broderick-Nathan Lane revival of The Odd Couple was critically panned, although it still managed to make a ton of money.

Medical file

Simon has suffered from major kidney problems over the years, and he received a kidney transplant from friend and longtime publicist Bill Evans in 2004. The incident supposedly inspired the transplant story line in a 2005 episode of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Personal

Simon is on his fourth wife and fifth marriage. His first wife, Joan, died of cancer; he subsequently married actress Marsha Mason, and they divorced in 1981. His third wife, Diane Lander, was handing out perfume samples at Neiman Marcus when they met. They divorced after a year, then re-married and stayed together for eight more. After divorcing again, Simon got hitched to actress Elaine Joyce. He has two daughters, Ellen and Nancy, from his first marriage; he has an adopted daughter, Bryn, with Lander. He lives with fourth wife Joyce on East 57th Street, in the same building as music mogul Clive Davis.

True story

Simon had some trouble with Mary Tyler Moore while she was rehearsing his play Rose's Dilemma in 2003. Moore was having difficulty learning her lines—even when having them fed to her by earpiece—and before a preview, Simon sent his wife backstage with a missive: "Learn your lines or get out of my play." Moore walked off the show.