The latter also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year. Three won: The Odd Couple in 1965, Biloxi Blues in 1985, and Lost in Yonkers-his last big Broadway hit-in 1991. Fifteen of his plays and musicals were nominated for Tony Awards. He won a Golden Globe for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated for The Sunshine Boys and The Heartbreak Kid.ĭuring his heyday of the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, Simon was even more honored in the theatre. He was nominated for an Oscar for the latter, as well as for the films of California Suite, The Sunshine Boys, and The Odd Couple. Simon also made his mark as a creator of original screenplays, writing the scripts for the 1972 critical hit The Heartbreak Kid, which was directed by Elaine May The Out-of-Towners, starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as hapless visitors comically victimized by New York City Murder By Death, a spoof of the detective genre and the 1977 romantic comedy The Goodbye Girl, which starred his then-wife Marsha Mason and helped to make Richard Dreyfuss a star.

(The third part, Broadway Bound, was made into a television movie.) Other work adapted for the screen included Barefoot in the Park, which starred a young Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, The Odd Couple with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Sweet Charity with Shirley MacLaine, Plaza Suite, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Sunshine Boys, I Oughta Be in Pictures, and two parts of his semi-autobiographical “Eugene Trilogy”: Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues. Most of his plays were converted into films, beginning with Come Blow Your Horn in 1963. He also succeeded with musicals, collaborating on Little Me, Sweet Charity, Promises, Promises, and They’re Playing Our Song. Simon had several Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys, California Suite, and Brighton Beach Memoirs were just a selection of his many hits. Most playwrights are lucky if they have one play that becomes a household name and a repertory staple. He was surrounded by his wife, Elaine Joyce Simon, and his daughters, Ellen and Nancy Simon. I carry a whole fricking boatload of regrets.Neil Simon, the prolific playwright who produced a string of comic smashes and was the most commercially successful American playwright in the latter half of the 20th century, died August 26 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital following complications from pneumonia. There's a lot of a**hole things that I did that I can never take back. 'I was 24 when I became famous,' the Natural Born Killers actor told The Guardian, explaining, 'I got drunk on success. Sure enough, Neil didn't need to worry, as, according to TCM, the couple 'filed for a summary dissolution at time Harrelson's career suddenly took off.' We have a feeling Nancy probably dodged a bullet, too, since the actor's newfound fame was filled with chaos and bacchanalian indulgence.

'I don't believe really in institution ,' Harrelson declared to Barbara Walters in 1997 (via ), adding, 'You can't really say you're gonna have and hold someone 'til death do you part because you don't know.'

In the years that followed, he also made it abundantly clear he didn't believe in being tied down.

'I think at the time Neil was a little bit worried I might try to go after her money,' Woody Harrelson explained to USA Today (via TCM).

Nancy simon baim