Neil Simon, Broadway's master of comedy, dies at 91

TampBay.cOm /AP ^ | 8/26/2018

[wally_bert]

I have the DVD around here somewhere.

[wally_bert]

I maybe watched an episode or two of the new odd couple.

[lee martell]

Neil probably caused his share of #MeToo moments during his younger years. Like most people in Theater. Apparently, though Neil didn’t have a lot of bitter enemies left alive ready to start problems.

[fieldmarshaldj]

The last of the giants. RIP.

[Fightin Whitey]

I played Mel in our HS version of it. I hear tell I was not too bad.

To paraphrase Charles Barkley, "You were relatively not too bad. All your relatives thought you were not too bad."

lol

[Lockbar]

"Back when Broadway wasn’t the bastion of faggotry it is now."

It was, they just kept it under cover... You don't think any guys got a part without smoking a pole?

[jerod]

Unless you go with the revisionist LBGTQRSTUV history where every historical figure is gay and every piece of literature from the bible on, has been about gay people and all the characters being written about are actually gay.

[fella]

A far greater loss than McCain.

[Jack Hammer]

R.I.P. Neil Simon, Genius of Comedy. You wrote some funny stuff.

[virgil]

The Cheap Detective is an underappreciated classic. Well, it’s cheap.

[patriot08]

We have to say goodbye to one of our greats.

Rest in peace, Me. Simon.

[patriot08]

me= Mr.

[freedumb2003]

>>To paraphrase Charles Barkley, “You were relatively not too bad. All your relatives thought you were not too bad.”

lol<<

That’s pretty good :)

[Maris Crane]

When comedy wasn’t drowning in politics, and was what “comedy” was supposed to be...funny.

RIP Neil Simon, a really funny man.

[Fightin Whitey]

That’s pretty good :)

Relatively speaking, right?

I saw a clip of Barkley goofing with some fans. Some kid was teasing him a little, he was tall, Barkley asked if he played ball himself. Kid said, yeah, he was hoping to play college ball.

Barkley said, Yeah, well, you've got the build. Good shape. And you're relatively good-looking too...yeah, yeah, you know what that means, don't you? All your relatives think you are good looking!

[Albion Wilde]

>>Among the greats should be listed “The Prisoner of Second Avenue”, the only one of his plays I saw on Broadway.<<

I saw his "Come Blow Your Horn" on the pre-Broadway run in Washington DC. Hilarious. I still remember one of the scenes vividly 55 years later. The protagonist's smothering mother was martyring herself about something and said, "All right then, I'm leaving — dragging my fur coat behind me," and actually dragged a beautiful full-length fur coat across the stage.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

i always get him and neil diamond mixed up

I liked him best when he was still with Garfunkel.

[TBP]

That escaped me. Thank you for posting it. Barbara Harris was brilliant. One of her underrated roles was in The Apple Tree with Alan Alda and Larry Blyden. Kristen Chenoweth played the part in the revival.

[TBP]

I have a few Neil Simon stories. When the late Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager were "in a relationship", Neil Simon was at their place one day and said kind of offhandedly, "Your relationship would make a great musical." Before they could say no, he added, "I'll write the book" (the non-musical script.) That musical was They're Playing Our Song. It had a modestly successful Broadway run.

[TBP]

For a time, Simon lived in LA because several of his plays were being made into movies. Like most dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers, he found LA, shall we say, a bit boring. “There are no people on the streets”, he once complained. He also is quoted as saying that “there are 87 interesting people in Los Angeles.”

Simon said he used to go over to Westwood, where UCLA is located, to stand in the movie lines — not to see the movies, but to feel the press of people around him. It made a New Yorker feel more at home.