Editing Neil Simon (section)

== Early years ==
Neil Simon was born on July 4, 1927, in [[The Bronx]], New York City, to [[Jews|Jewish]] parents. His father, Irving Simon, was a garment salesman, and his mother, Mamie (Levy) Simon, was mostly a homemaker.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/theater-and-dance/19232/neil-simon-unbound |title=Neil Simon Unbound |work=[[Tablet (magazine)|Tablet]] |access-date=May 15, 2017}}</ref> Neil had one brother, eight years his senior, television writer and comedy teacher [[Danny Simon]]. He grew up in [[Washington Heights, Manhattan|Washington Heights]], Manhattan, and graduated from [[DeWitt Clinton High School]] when he was sixteen. He was nicknamed 'Doc', and the school yearbook described him as extremely shy.<ref name="Konas">{{cite book |editor-last=Konas |editor-first=Gary |year=1997 |title=Neil Simon: A Casebook |publisher=Garland Publishing}}</ref>{{rp|39}}

Simon's childhood was marked by his parents' "tempestuous marriage" and the financial hardship caused by the Depression.<ref name="Koprince">{{cite book |last=Koprince |first=Susan |year=2002 |title=Understanding Neil Simon |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |location=Columbia, SC |isbn=1-57003-426-5}}.</ref>{{rp|1}} Sometimes at night he blocked out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears.<ref name="Playboy">{{cite magazine |last=Grobel |first=Lawrence |title=Playboy Interview with Neil Simon |magazine=[[Playboy]] |date=February 1977}}</ref> His father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional suffering. As a result, the family took in boarders, and Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives.<ref name="Koprince" />{{rp|2}}

During an interview with writer [[Lawrence Grobel]], Simon said: "To this day I never really knew what the reason for all the fights and battles were about between the two of them&nbsp;... She'd hate him and be very angry, but he would come back and she would take him back. She really loved him."<ref name="Grobel">{{cite book |last=Grobel |first=Lawrence |title=Endangered Species: Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives |url=https://archive.org/details/endangeredspecie00grob |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Da Capo Press]] |year=2001|isbn=9780306810046 }}</ref>{{rp|378}} Simon has said that one of the reasons he became a writer was to fulfill a need to be independent of such emotional family issues, a need he recognized when he was seven or eight: "I'd better start taking care of myself somehow&nbsp;... It made me strong as an independent person.<ref name="Grobel" />{{rp|378}}

{{Blockquote |style=font-size: 100%; |text=I think part of what made me a comedy writer is the blocking out of some of the really ugly, painful things in my childhood and covering it up with a humorous attitude&nbsp;... do something to laugh until I was able to forget what was hurting.<ref name="Koprince" />{{rp|2}}}}

He was able to do that at the movies, in the work of stars like [[Charlie Chaplin]], [[Buster Keaton]], and [[Laurel and Hardy]]. "I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud." Simon acknowledged these childhood films as his inspiration: "I wanted to make a whole audience fall onto the floor, writhing and laughing so hard that some of them pass out."<ref name="Johnson">{{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Robert K. |title=Neil Simon |url=https://archive.org/details/neilsimon00robe |url-access=registration |publisher=Twayne Publishers |location=Boston |year=1983}}.</ref>{{rp|1}} He made writing comedy his long-term goal, and also saw it as a way to connect with people. "I was never going to be an athlete or a doctor."<ref name="Grobel" />{{rp|379}} He began writing for pay while still in high school: At the age of fifteen, Simon and his brother created a series of comedy sketches for employees at an annual department store event. To help develop his writing skill, he often spent three days a week at the library reading books by famous humorists such as [[Mark Twain]], [[Robert Benchley]], [[George S. Kaufman]] and [[S. J. Perelman]].<ref name="Konas" />{{rp|218}}

Soon after graduating from high school, he signed up with the [[United States Army Air Forces|Army Air Force Reserve]] at [[New York University]]. He attained the rank of corporal and was eventually sent to [[Colorado]]. During those years in the Reserve, Simon wrote professionally, starting as a sports editor. He was assigned to [[Lowry Air Force Base]] during 1945 and attended the [[University of Denver]]<ref name="Chronicle" /> from 1945 to 1946.<ref name="Chronicle">{{cite web |url=http://www.thejc.com/news/on-day/51085/on-day-neil-simon-born |title=On this day: Neil Simon is born |first=Deborah |last=Weltzmann |date=July 4, 2011 |work=[[The Jewish Chronicle]] |access-date=August 29, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Koprince" />{{rp|2}}