Введение
Американский драматург, писатель и ученый (1927–2018)
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Selma Diamond), and The Phil Silvers Show, which ran from 1955 to 1959. His first produced play was Come Blow Your Horn (1961). It took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two more successes, Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965). He won a Tony Award for the latter. It made him a national celebrity and "the hottest new playwright on Broadway". Neil had one brother, eight years his senior, television writer and comedy teacher Danny Simon. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School when he was sixteen. He was nicknamed 'Doc', and the school yearbook described him as extremely shy. Simon's childhood was marked by his parents' "tempestuous marriage" and the financial hardship caused by the Depression. Sometimes at night he blocked out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears. His father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional suffering. As a result, the family took in boarders, and Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives. Simon has said that one of the reasons he became a writer was to fulfill a need to be independent of such emotional family issues, a need he recognized when he was seven or eight: "I'd better start taking care of myself somehow It made me strong as an independent person. He made writing comedy his long term goal, and also saw it as a way to connect with people. "I was never going to be an athlete or a doctor." Simon later wrote scripts for The Phil Silvers Show, for episodes broadcast during 1958 and 1959. Simon later recalled the importance of these two writing jobs to his career: "Between the two of them, I spent five years and learned more about what I was eventually going to do than in any other previous experience." Simon described a typical writing session:
Blockquote |style=font size: 100%; |text=There were about seven writers, plus Sid, Carl Reiner, and Howie Morris Mel Brooks and maybe Woody Allen would write one of the other sketches everyone would pitch in and rewrite, so we all had a part of it It was probably the most enjoyable time I ever had in writing with other people. In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, ran for 678 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Simon took three years to create that first play, partly because he was also working on television scripts. He rewrote it at least twenty times from beginning to end:
Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965), for which he won a Tony Award, brought him national celebrity, and he was considered "the hottest new playwright on Broadway", according to Susan Koprince. The Star Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. These earned him royalties of $1 million a year. Simon also adapted material originated by others, such as the musical Little Me (1962), based on the novel by Patrick Dennis; Sweet Charity (1966) from the screenplay for the film Nights of Cabiria (1957), written by Federico Fellini and others; and Promises, Promises (1968) a musical version of Billy Wilder's film, The Apartment. By the time of Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1969, Simon was reputedly earning $45,000 a week from his shows (excluding sale of rights), making him the most financially successful Broadway writer ever. Simon also served as an uncredited "script doctor", helping to hone the books of Broadway bound plays or musicals under development, as he did for A Chorus Line (1975). During the 1970s, he wrote a string of successful plays; sometimes more than one was playing at the same time, to standing room only audiences. Although he was, by then, recognized as one of the country's leading playwrights, his inner drive kept him writing:
Blockquote | style=font size: 100%; | text=Did I relax and watch my boyhood ambitions being fulfilled before my eyes? Not if you were born in the Bronx, in the Depression and Jewish, you don't. Following Lost in Yonkers, Simon's next several plays did not meet with commercial success. The Dinner Party (2000), which starred Henry Winkler and John Ritter, was "a modest hit". and received poor reviews.
Марвин Нил Саймон (4 июля 1927 – 26 августа 2018) – американский драматург, сценарист и писатель. Он написал более 30 пьес и почти столько же сценариев к фильмам, в основном – экранизации своих пьес. Он был удостоен трех премий «Тони» и премии «Золотой глобус», а также номинировался на премию «Оскар» четыре раза и на премию «Эмми» – четыре раза. В 1975 году он получил специальную премию «Тони», в 1995 году – награду Центра Кеннеди, а в 2006 году – премию Марка Твена за американский юмор. Саймон вырос в Нью-Йорке во время Великой депрессии. Финансовые трудности родителей повлияли на их брак, что привело к в основном несчастному и нестабильному детству. Он часто находил убежище в кинотеатрах, где ему нравилось смотреть на таких ранних комиков, как Чарли Чаплин. После окончания средней школы и нескольких лет службы в резерве военно-воздушных сил он начал писать комедийные сценарии для радиопрограмм и популярных ранних телевизионных шоу. Среди них – «Your Show of Shows» Сида Сизара (где в 1950 году он работал вместе с другими молодыми писателями, включая Карла Рейнера, Мела Брукса, Вуди Аллена, Ларри Гелбарта и Сельму Даймонд) и «The Phil Silvers Show», которое шло с 1955 по 1959 год. Его первой поставленной пьесой стала «Come Blow Your Horn» (1961). На ее завершение ушло три года, и она выдержала 678 представлений на Бродвее. За ней последовали еще два успеха: «Barefoot in the Park» (1963) и «The Odd Couple» (1965). За последнюю он получил премию «Тони». Это сделало его национальной знаменитостью и «самым востребованным новым драматургом на Бродвее». У Нила был брат, Дэнни Саймон, на восемь лет старше, – телевизионный сценарист и преподаватель комедии. Он вырос в Вашингтоне-Хайтс, Манхэттен, и окончил среднюю школу ДеУитта Клинтона в шестнадцать лет. Его прозвали «Док», и в школьном ежегоднике его описывали как крайне застенчивого. Детство Саймона было омрачено «бурным браком» родителей и финансовыми трудностями, вызванными Великой депрессией. Иногда ночью он заглушал их споры, накрываясь подушкой. Отец часто оставлял семью на несколько месяцев, что приводило к еще большим финансовым и эмоциональным страданиям. В результате семья принимала пансионеров, и Саймону с братом Дэнни иногда приходилось жить с разными родственниками. Саймон говорил, что одна из причин, по которой он стал писателем, заключалась в необходимости быть независимым от таких эмоциональных семейных проблем, потребность, которую он осознал в семь или восемь лет: «Мне нужно было как-то начать заботиться о себе. Это сделало меня сильным и независимым человеком». Он поставил перед собой долгосрочную цель – писать комедии, а также видел в этом способ наладить контакт с людьми. «Я никогда не собирался быть спортсменом или врачом». Позже Саймон писал сценарии для «The Phil Silvers Show», эпизоды которых выходили в эфир в 1958 и 1959 годах. Позже Саймон вспоминал, насколько важны были эти две работы для его карьеры: «Между ними я провел пять лет и узнал больше о том, чем в итоге собирался заниматься, чем из любого другого опыта». Саймон описал типичную сессию написания:
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Selma Diamond), and The Phil Silvers Show, which ran from 1955 to 1959. His first produced play was Come Blow Your Horn (1961). It took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two more successes, Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965). He won a Tony Award for the latter. It made him a national celebrity and "the hottest new playwright on Broadway". Neil had one brother, eight years his senior, television writer and comedy teacher Danny Simon. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School when he was sixteen. He was nicknamed 'Doc', and the school yearbook described him as extremely shy. Simon's childhood was marked by his parents' "tempestuous marriage" and the financial hardship caused by the Depression. Sometimes at night he blocked out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears. His father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional suffering. As a result, the family took in boarders, and Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives. Simon has said that one of the reasons he became a writer was to fulfill a need to be independent of such emotional family issues, a need he recognized when he was seven or eight: "I'd better start taking care of myself somehow It made me strong as an independent person. He made writing comedy his long term goal, and also saw it as a way to connect with people. "I was never going to be an athlete or a doctor." Simon later wrote scripts for The Phil Silvers Show, for episodes broadcast during 1958 and 1959. Simon later recalled the importance of these two writing jobs to his career: "Between the two of them, I spent five years and learned more about what I was eventually going to do than in any other previous experience." Simon described a typical writing session:
Blockquote |style=font size: 100%; |text=There were about seven writers, plus Sid, Carl Reiner, and Howie Morris Mel Brooks and maybe Woody Allen would write one of the other sketches everyone would pitch in and rewrite, so we all had a part of it It was probably the most enjoyable time I ever had in writing with other people. In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, ran for 678 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Simon took three years to create that first play, partly because he was also working on television scripts. He rewrote it at least twenty times from beginning to end:
Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965), for which he won a Tony Award, brought him national celebrity, and he was considered "the hottest new playwright on Broadway", according to Susan Koprince. The Star Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. These earned him royalties of $1 million a year. Simon also adapted material originated by others, such as the musical Little Me (1962), based on the novel by Patrick Dennis; Sweet Charity (1966) from the screenplay for the film Nights of Cabiria (1957), written by Federico Fellini and others; and Promises, Promises (1968) a musical version of Billy Wilder's film, The Apartment. By the time of Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1969, Simon was reputedly earning $45,000 a week from his shows (excluding sale of rights), making him the most financially successful Broadway writer ever. Simon also served as an uncredited "script doctor", helping to hone the books of Broadway bound plays or musicals under development, as he did for A Chorus Line (1975). During the 1970s, he wrote a string of successful plays; sometimes more than one was playing at the same time, to standing room only audiences. Although he was, by then, recognized as one of the country's leading playwrights, his inner drive kept him writing:
Blockquote | style=font size: 100%; | text=Did I relax and watch my boyhood ambitions being fulfilled before my eyes? Not if you were born in the Bronx, in the Depression and Jewish, you don't. Following Lost in Yonkers, Simon's next several plays did not meet with commercial success. The Dinner Party (2000), which starred Henry Winkler and John Ritter, was "a modest hit". and received poor reviews.
Блокцитата |style=font size: 100%; |text=Присутствовало около семи писателей, плюс Сид, Карл Райнер и Хоуи Моррис. Мел Брукс и, возможно, Вуди Аллен писали один из других скетчей. Каждый вносил свой вклад и переписывал, поэтому мы все были частью этого. Это было, пожалуй, самое приятное время, которое я когда-либо проводил, работая с другими писателями. В 1961 году первая бродвейская пьеса Саймона, «Come Blow Your Horn», выдержала 678 представлений в театре Брукс Аткинсон. Саймону потребовалось три года, чтобы создать эту первую пьесу, отчасти потому, что он также работал над телевизионными сценариями. Он переписывал ее по крайней мере двадцать раз от начала до конца:
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Selma Diamond), and The Phil Silvers Show, which ran from 1955 to 1959. His first produced play was Come Blow Your Horn (1961). It took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two more successes, Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965). He won a Tony Award for the latter. It made him a national celebrity and "the hottest new playwright on Broadway". Neil had one brother, eight years his senior, television writer and comedy teacher Danny Simon. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School when he was sixteen. He was nicknamed 'Doc', and the school yearbook described him as extremely shy. Simon's childhood was marked by his parents' "tempestuous marriage" and the financial hardship caused by the Depression. Sometimes at night he blocked out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears. His father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional suffering. As a result, the family took in boarders, and Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives. Simon has said that one of the reasons he became a writer was to fulfill a need to be independent of such emotional family issues, a need he recognized when he was seven or eight: "I'd better start taking care of myself somehow It made me strong as an independent person. He made writing comedy his long term goal, and also saw it as a way to connect with people. "I was never going to be an athlete or a doctor." Simon later wrote scripts for The Phil Silvers Show, for episodes broadcast during 1958 and 1959. Simon later recalled the importance of these two writing jobs to his career: "Between the two of them, I spent five years and learned more about what I was eventually going to do than in any other previous experience." Simon described a typical writing session:
Blockquote |style=font size: 100%; |text=There were about seven writers, plus Sid, Carl Reiner, and Howie Morris Mel Brooks and maybe Woody Allen would write one of the other sketches everyone would pitch in and rewrite, so we all had a part of it It was probably the most enjoyable time I ever had in writing with other people. In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, ran for 678 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Simon took three years to create that first play, partly because he was also working on television scripts. He rewrote it at least twenty times from beginning to end:
Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965), for which he won a Tony Award, brought him national celebrity, and he was considered "the hottest new playwright on Broadway", according to Susan Koprince. The Star Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. These earned him royalties of $1 million a year. Simon also adapted material originated by others, such as the musical Little Me (1962), based on the novel by Patrick Dennis; Sweet Charity (1966) from the screenplay for the film Nights of Cabiria (1957), written by Federico Fellini and others; and Promises, Promises (1968) a musical version of Billy Wilder's film, The Apartment. By the time of Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1969, Simon was reputedly earning $45,000 a week from his shows (excluding sale of rights), making him the most financially successful Broadway writer ever. Simon also served as an uncredited "script doctor", helping to hone the books of Broadway bound plays or musicals under development, as he did for A Chorus Line (1975). During the 1970s, he wrote a string of successful plays; sometimes more than one was playing at the same time, to standing room only audiences. Although he was, by then, recognized as one of the country's leading playwrights, his inner drive kept him writing:
Blockquote | style=font size: 100%; | text=Did I relax and watch my boyhood ambitions being fulfilled before my eyes? Not if you were born in the Bronx, in the Depression and Jewish, you don't. Following Lost in Yonkers, Simon's next several plays did not meet with commercial success. The Dinner Party (2000), which starred Henry Winkler and John Ritter, was "a modest hit". and received poor reviews.
«Barefoot in the Park» (1963) и «The Odd Couple» (1965), за которую он получил премию «Тони», принесли ему национальную известность, и, по словам Сьюзан Копринс, его считали «самым востребованным новым драматургом на Бродвее». «The Star Spangled Girl», «The Odd Couple» и «Barefoot in the Park» принесли ему гонорары в размере 1 миллиона долларов в год. Саймон также адаптировал произведения других авторов, такие как мюзикл «Little Me» (1962), основанный на романе Патрика Денниса; «Sweet Charity» (1966) по сценарию фильма «Ночи Кабирии» (1957), написанного Федерико Феллини и другими; и «Promises, Promises» (1968) – музыкальную версию фильма Билли Уайлдера «Квартира». К моменту выхода «Last of the Red Hot Lovers» в 1969 году, по слухам, Саймон зарабатывал 45 000 долларов в неделю от своих пьес (не считая продажи прав), что делало его самым финансово успешным драматургом на Бродвее. Саймон также выступал в качестве некредитованного «script doctor», помогая оттачивать либретто бродвейских пьес или мюзиклов, находящихся в разработке, как он это делал для «A Chorus Line» (1975). В 1970-е годы он написал ряд успешных пьес, иногда более одной шла одновременно, с аншлагами. Хотя к тому времени его уже признавали одним из ведущих драматургов страны, его внутреннее стремление заставляло его продолжать писать:
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Selma Diamond), and The Phil Silvers Show, which ran from 1955 to 1959. His first produced play was Come Blow Your Horn (1961). It took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two more successes, Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965). He won a Tony Award for the latter. It made him a national celebrity and "the hottest new playwright on Broadway". Neil had one brother, eight years his senior, television writer and comedy teacher Danny Simon. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School when he was sixteen. He was nicknamed 'Doc', and the school yearbook described him as extremely shy. Simon's childhood was marked by his parents' "tempestuous marriage" and the financial hardship caused by the Depression. Sometimes at night he blocked out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears. His father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional suffering. As a result, the family took in boarders, and Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives. Simon has said that one of the reasons he became a writer was to fulfill a need to be independent of such emotional family issues, a need he recognized when he was seven or eight: "I'd better start taking care of myself somehow It made me strong as an independent person. He made writing comedy his long term goal, and also saw it as a way to connect with people. "I was never going to be an athlete or a doctor." Simon later wrote scripts for The Phil Silvers Show, for episodes broadcast during 1958 and 1959. Simon later recalled the importance of these two writing jobs to his career: "Between the two of them, I spent five years and learned more about what I was eventually going to do than in any other previous experience." Simon described a typical writing session:
Blockquote |style=font size: 100%; |text=There were about seven writers, plus Sid, Carl Reiner, and Howie Morris Mel Brooks and maybe Woody Allen would write one of the other sketches everyone would pitch in and rewrite, so we all had a part of it It was probably the most enjoyable time I ever had in writing with other people. In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, ran for 678 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Simon took three years to create that first play, partly because he was also working on television scripts. He rewrote it at least twenty times from beginning to end:
Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965), for which he won a Tony Award, brought him national celebrity, and he was considered "the hottest new playwright on Broadway", according to Susan Koprince. The Star Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. These earned him royalties of $1 million a year. Simon also adapted material originated by others, such as the musical Little Me (1962), based on the novel by Patrick Dennis; Sweet Charity (1966) from the screenplay for the film Nights of Cabiria (1957), written by Federico Fellini and others; and Promises, Promises (1968) a musical version of Billy Wilder's film, The Apartment. By the time of Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1969, Simon was reputedly earning $45,000 a week from his shows (excluding sale of rights), making him the most financially successful Broadway writer ever. Simon also served as an uncredited "script doctor", helping to hone the books of Broadway bound plays or musicals under development, as he did for A Chorus Line (1975). During the 1970s, he wrote a string of successful plays; sometimes more than one was playing at the same time, to standing room only audiences. Although he was, by then, recognized as one of the country's leading playwrights, his inner drive kept him writing:
Blockquote | style=font size: 100%; | text=Did I relax and watch my boyhood ambitions being fulfilled before my eyes? Not if you were born in the Bronx, in the Depression and Jewish, you don't. Following Lost in Yonkers, Simon's next several plays did not meet with commercial success. The Dinner Party (2000), which starred Henry Winkler and John Ritter, was "a modest hit". and received poor reviews.
Блокцитата | style=font size: 100%; | text=Расслабился ли я и наблюдал ли за исполнением своих детских амбиций на моих глазах? Нет, если ты родился в Бронксе, в эпоху депрессии и еврейской семье. После «Lost in Yonkers» следующие несколько пьес Саймона не имели коммерческого успеха. «The Dinner Party» (2000), в котором снялись Генри Уинклер и Джон Риттер, был «умеренно успешным» и получил негативные отзывы.
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He received three Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Selma Diamond), and The Phil Silvers Show, which ran from 1955 to 1959. His first produced play was Come Blow Your Horn (1961). It took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two more successes, Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965). He won a Tony Award for the latter. It made him a national celebrity and "the hottest new playwright on Broadway". Neil had one brother, eight years his senior, television writer and comedy teacher Danny Simon. He grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School when he was sixteen. He was nicknamed 'Doc', and the school yearbook described him as extremely shy. Simon's childhood was marked by his parents' "tempestuous marriage" and the financial hardship caused by the Depression. Sometimes at night he blocked out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears. His father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional suffering. As a result, the family took in boarders, and Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives. Simon has said that one of the reasons he became a writer was to fulfill a need to be independent of such emotional family issues, a need he recognized when he was seven or eight: "I'd better start taking care of myself somehow It made me strong as an independent person. He made writing comedy his long term goal, and also saw it as a way to connect with people. "I was never going to be an athlete or a doctor." Simon later wrote scripts for The Phil Silvers Show, for episodes broadcast during 1958 and 1959. Simon later recalled the importance of these two writing jobs to his career: "Between the two of them, I spent five years and learned more about what I was eventually going to do than in any other previous experience." Simon described a typical writing session:
Blockquote |style=font size: 100%; |text=There were about seven writers, plus Sid, Carl Reiner, and Howie Morris Mel Brooks and maybe Woody Allen would write one of the other sketches everyone would pitch in and rewrite, so we all had a part of it It was probably the most enjoyable time I ever had in writing with other people. In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, ran for 678 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Simon took three years to create that first play, partly because he was also working on television scripts. He rewrote it at least twenty times from beginning to end:
Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965), for which he won a Tony Award, brought him national celebrity, and he was considered "the hottest new playwright on Broadway", according to Susan Koprince. The Star Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. These earned him royalties of $1 million a year. Simon also adapted material originated by others, such as the musical Little Me (1962), based on the novel by Patrick Dennis; Sweet Charity (1966) from the screenplay for the film Nights of Cabiria (1957), written by Federico Fellini and others; and Promises, Promises (1968) a musical version of Billy Wilder's film, The Apartment. By the time of Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1969, Simon was reputedly earning $45,000 a week from his shows (excluding sale of rights), making him the most financially successful Broadway writer ever. Simon also served as an uncredited "script doctor", helping to hone the books of Broadway bound plays or musicals under development, as he did for A Chorus Line (1975). During the 1970s, he wrote a string of successful plays; sometimes more than one was playing at the same time, to standing room only audiences. Although he was, by then, recognized as one of the country's leading playwrights, his inner drive kept him writing:
Blockquote | style=font size: 100%; | text=Did I relax and watch my boyhood ambitions being fulfilled before my eyes? Not if you were born in the Bronx, in the Depression and Jewish, you don't. Following Lost in Yonkers, Simon's next several plays did not meet with commercial success. The Dinner Party (2000), which starred Henry Winkler and John Ritter, was "a modest hit". and received poor reviews.
Экран
Саймон решил не писать сценарий к первой экранизации его пьесы "Come Blow Your Horn" (1963), предпочтя сосредоточиться на драматургии. Однако фильм разочаровал его, и впоследствии он стремился контролировать адаптацию своих произведений. Саймон написал сценарии к более чем двадцати фильмам и был четырежды номинирован на премию «Оскар» за фильмы «Нечетная пара» (1969), «Солнечные мальчики» (1975), «Прощай, милая» (1977) и «Калифорнийский сюит» (1978). Среди других фильмов – «Приезжие» (1970) и «Убийство по заказу» (1976). Несмотря на успех большинства его фильмов, кино всегда оставалось для него на втором плане по сравнению с театром.
Стиль написания и тема
Основным и наиболее последовательным аспектом стиля письма Симона была комедия – ситуационная и словесная, – представляющая серьезные темы таким образом, что зрители "смеются сквозь слезы". Племянник Симона – окружной судья США Майкл Х. Саймон, а его невестка – член Конгресса США Сюзанна Бонамичи. Симон входил в состав отборочной комиссии премии Джефферсона за общественную службу. В 2004 году Симону была пересажена почка его давнего друга и публициста Билла Эванса. Нил Саймон умер от пневмонии в нью-йоркской пресвитерианской больнице на Манхэттене 26 августа 2018 года, находясь в больнице из-за почечной недостаточности. Ему было 91 год, и он страдал болезнью Альцгеймера.
Награды и почести
Саймон был удостоен трех почетных степеней: доктора гуманитарных наук Университета Хофстры, доктора литературы Университета Маркетт и доктора права Колледжа Уильямса. В 1983 году Саймон стал единственным живущим драматургом, в честь которого был назван театр в Нью-Йорке. Театр Элвина на Бродвее был переименован в Театр Нила Саймона в его честь, а он являлся почетным членом совета директоров театра Уолнат-стрит в Филадельфии, старейшего театра в Америке. Также в 1983 году Саймон был принят в Американский театральный Зал славы. В 1965 году он получил премию «Тони» как лучший драматург (за пьесу «The Odd Couple»), а в 1975 году – специальную премию «Тони» за выдающийся вклад в американский театр. В 1978 году Саймон был удостоен премии «Золотой глобус» за лучший сценарий к фильму «Прощай, девочка». За пьесу «Воспоминания Брайтон-Бич» (1983) он получил премию New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, за которой последовала еще одна премия «Тони» за лучшую пьесу 1985 года – «Билокси-Блюз», а также премия «Тони» за пьесу «Потерянные в Йонкерсе» (1991). Фестиваль Нила Саймона – это профессиональный летний репертуарный театр, посвященный сохранению произведений Саймона и его современников. Он был основан Ричардом Дином Баггом в 2003 году. В 2006 году Саймон получил премию Марка Твена за американский юмор.