Neil Simon

They say deaths come in threes, and we did have three front-page obituaries in the last ten days: Aretha Franklin, John McCain, and then Neil Simon. I'm most touched by the death of Simon, because he meant more to me than the other two. At one time, subconsciously, I wanted to be just like Neil Simon.

When I was trying to write plays (and I did write some that were produced in college) Simon was an ever-present influence. I had a two-volume collection of his plays that I still have in a box somewhere, and that I poured over as if it were the Talmud. When I wrote, I imitated Simon's style, as did may writers. Characters spoke in zingers, and were at each other's throats. Witticisms and bon mots flew like hummingbirds.

Simon was a creature of sketch comedy, and also of a tradition of Borscht Belt humor that is one of the greatest gifts of the Jewish people. As a writer for television's Show of Shows, he was with many other Jewish writers, such as Larry Gelbart, Mel Brooks, Mel Tolkin, and later, Woody Allen. Although Simon's plays were never explicitly Jewish--the characters were not named Rabinowitz or Sheinkopf--he humor was. Most of his plays were set in urban environments, with characters trapped together like scorpions in a bottle, trading barbs.

Simon was immensely popular--he is the most popular American playwright ever--and had hit after hit, at one time having four plays running on Broadway at once. He wrote thirty plays, and almost as many screenplays. His greatest triumph was The Odd Couple, which introduced the iconic figures of Oscar and Felix into our lexicon. Like many ridiculously proper writers, he was scorned by some critics, but he did win a Pulitzer Prize for his Lost in Yonkers, but it seemed to come at a price: he never had a hit play after that.

I ate all his stuff up as a young man. I felt it in my bones. One day in acting class we were asked to read from Barefoot in the Park, and to emphasize the gags. The professor, I believe, didn't think too much of me as an actor, but on this day it was my turn to shine. I was like Brer Rabbit being thrown into the brier patch. I knew how to deliver comic lines like these, and my professor was effusive in his phrase. My great regret is that I have never had a chance to play Oscar Madison, who I am like in many ways. Maybe someday.

Simon, coming from television, was either influenced by television or the other way around. Many derided his work as "sit-com writing," but let's face it, writing a good sit-com is incredibly difficult. I think if there's a legitimate knock on Simon is that many of his comedies blur together, and that characters from several different plays have the same sense of humor. But I don't know of any figure in American letters who has inspired more laughs.

More on The Odd Couple tomorrow.