Broadway skies

"Sports is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending."

~ Neil Simon

     In an interview with National Public Radio Neil Simon, asked about his childhood in New York City, said his father left the family and came back, eight different times.

     The interviewer asked, "Was it strange to have him coming and going like that?'
     And Simon answered, "It was awful because I felt my life was sort of on a yo-yo....  My mother never knew when he was coming back.  

And the whole world lit up when he came back because it meant not only that we'd not have to fear for the rent because he didn't leave any money for us.  We didn't have to worry about food...."

     He added that his mother  "...was very loving and very encouraging in terms of my brother and I doing the writing.  My brother ...would read the monologues that we would write at first to my mother.  And she would just laugh all the way through.  And my brother said, do you understand what they mean?  

And she said, no, I don't.  

And he said, well, why are you laughing?  She says, well, it pleases me to please you.  I mean, it was such a wonderful thing for her to do.  It didn't encourage us as writers, but it encouraged us that we had a terrific mother."

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     Looking at a list of Neil Simon's works -- you could drown:  he was quite prolific.


Theatre

Come Blow Your Horn     1961
Little Me     1962
Barefoot in the Park     1963
The Odd Couple     1965
Sweet Charity     1966
The Star-Spangled Girl     1966
Plaza Suite     1968
Promises, Promises     1968

Last of the Red Hot Lovers     1969
The Gingerbread Lady    1970
The Prisoner of Second Avenue     1971
The Sunshine Boys     1972
The Good Doctor     1973
God's Favorite 1974
California Suite     1976
Chapter Two     1977
They're Playing Our Song     1979
I Ought to Be in Pictures     1980
Fools     1981

Brighton Beach Memoirs     1983
Biloxi Blues     1985
Broadway Bound     1986
Rumors     1988
Lost in Yonkers     1991
Jake's Women     1992
The Goodbye Girl     1993

Laughter on the 23rd Floor     1993
London Suite     1995
Proposals     19979
The Dinner Party     2000
45 Seconds from Broadway     2001
Rose's Dilemma     2003

Screenplays

After the Fox     1966
Barefoot in the Park     1967
The Odd Couple     1968
Sweet Charity     1969
The Out-of-Towners     1970

Plaza Suite     1971
Last of the Red Hot Lovers     1972
The Heartbreak Kid     1972
The Prisoner of Second Avenue     1975
The Sunshine Boys     1975
Murder by Death     1976
The Goodbye Girl     1977
The Cheap Detective     1978
California Suite     1978

Chapter Two     1979
Seems Like Old Times     1980
Only When I Laugh     1981
I Ought to Be in Pictures     1982
Max Dugan Returns     1983
The Lonely Guy     1984
The Slugger's Wife     1985
Brighton Beach Memoirs     1986

Biloxi Blues     1988
The Marrying Man     1991
Lost in Yonkers     1993
The Odd Couple II     1998


Television

The Garry Moore Show     1950
Your Show of Shows     1950-54
Caesar's Hour     1954-57
Stanley     1956
The Phil Silvers Show     1958-59


Movies made for television

The Good Doctor     1978
Plaza Suite     1987
Broadway Bound     1992
The Sunshine Boys     1996
Jake's Women     1996
London Suite     1996
Laughter on the 23rd Floor     2001
The Goodbye Girl     2004


Books

Rewrites:  A Memoir     1996
The Play Goes On:  A Memoir     1999

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     I like to read lists like this and see which titles are most alluring, and which ones I would have tried to just come up with a different title....

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