'It was the key to success'

 

“Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.” – Neil Simon
 

Born in the Bronx, NY on July 4, 1927 Simon grew up during the Great Depression – a great shaper of both his life and his art.  Writing about “life” became the grist for his creative mill, beginning with work on comedy scripts for radio and then gravitating to the Broadway stage.

 

He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, earning more combined Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer.   After breaking onto the playwriting scene with Come Blow Your Horn in 1961, Simon won his first Tony for the long-running and one of the most widely performed plays in history, The Odd Couple. 

 

The first playwright to earn 15 “Best Play” awards, he was given a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.   Simon, who died in 2018, also won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Lost in Yonkers, was named for the Mark Twain Prize, America’s top humor award, and was the first living playwright to have a Broadway theater named in his honor.    

 

While humor is at the heart of most of Simon’s works, his rich variety of entertaining, memorable characters also portray the human experience with serious themes.   His said he thought his willingness to try new things was a key to his success.   

 

“If no one ever took risks,” he said, “Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.”