Neil Simon, Preeminent And Prolific Playwright And Screenwriter, Has Died At 91

Neil Simon, the enormously productive comic playwright who often adapted his work into screenplays, died on early Sunday morning. He was 91. The cause of death was complications from pneumonia, according to Bill Evans, his longtime friend and publicist.

Among the most prolific playwrights in American theater from the 1960s through the 1990s, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for Lost in Yonkers, which he said was his deepest play. But Neil Simon was better known for being funny.

Born Marvin Neil Simon, his plays often chronicled a stormy childhood, his five marriages and a stint in the Army. He had his biggest hit in 1965 with The Odd Couple, about a pair of mismatched roommates. The film version followed, as did a ’70s TV sitcom.