UPDATE: Neil Simon, Broadway's long-reigning king of comedy, dies at 91
Source: Washington Post
Neil Simon, the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning author of plays such as "The Odd Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and "Lost in Yonkers," who died Aug. 26 at 91, was often called the world's most popular playwright after Shakespeare. Time magazine proclaimed him the "patron saint of laughter." His shows, with an arsenal of sarcastic wit, became highly entertaining staples of high school and community theaters, and they popped up on stages as far away as Beijing and Moscow. But mostly, he dominated Broadway like no other playwright of the past half-century.
Hardly a year passed from 1961 to 1993 without a new production by Mr. Simon, whose legacy was a colossally successful run of comedies and comic dramas on topics such as romance, adultery, divorce, sibling rivalry, cancer and the fear of aging. Several are regarded as classics of 20th-century American theater.
Frequently, Mr. Simon's plays centered on white, middle-class Americans -- mostly New Yorkers and mainly Jews -- but the characters were universally relatable. He considered himself "an investigator" of the quotidian. "I don't write social and political plays, because I've always thought the family was the microcosm of what goes on in the world," Mr. Simon told the Paris Review in 1992. "I write about the small wars that eventually become the big wars."
His output included dozens of plays, the scripts for five hit musicals, more than 20 screenplays and two volumes of memoirs. Many of his earliest shows were directed by Mike Nichols, who once said that much of Mr. Simon's work will endure because of its "recognizability" -- mining laughs from situations familiar to a vast middle-class public. "You'd hear an 'aah' from the audience, a sound of 'My God, that's me,' " Nichols, the director of films including "The Graduate," once told the New Yorker. " 'That's me, that's you, that's Uncle Joe, that's Pop.' "
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/neil-simon-broadways-long-reigning-king-of-comedy-dies-at-91/2018/08/26/74a02eba-a7fc-11e8-a656-943eefab5daf_story.html
All I can say is that this was some week. We have lost several iconic individuals who have left a lasting imprint on American society.
Original headline/article -
By Washington Post Staff
August 26 at 11:41 AM
The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning author, who was often called the world's most popular playwright after Shakespeare, wrote dozens of plays and dominated Broadway with hits such as "The Odd Couple," "Lost in Yonkers" and "Barefoot in the Park."
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/08/26/neil-simon-famed-playwright-who-found-humor-by-chronicling-middle-class-concerns-dies-at-91/?utm_term.28f213237dae
= new reply since forum marked as read
also, The Out of Towners (original) and The Odd Couple (loved the film but hated the tv version).
RIP
and I will always see him as a national treasure for that along with the many other cultural shifts he helped along with his wit and talent.
Honestly I didn't know he was still around until I saw this notice.
Rest in Peace Neil Simon! Thanks for all your wonderful stories.
Neil Simon...an excellent writer...
