Neil Simon, the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning author of plays such as "The Odd Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and "Lost in Yonkers," who died Aug. 26 at 91, was often called the world's most popular playwright after Shakespeare.
Time magazine proclaimed him the "patron saint of laughter." His shows, with an arsenal of sarcastic wit, became highly entertaining staples of high school and community theaters, and they popped up on stages as far away as Beijing and Moscow. But mostly, he dominated Broadway like no other playwright of the past half-century.
Hardly a year passed from 1961 to 1993 without a new production by Simon, whose legacy was a colossally successful run of comedies and comic dramas on topics such as romance, adultery, divorce, sibling rivalry, cancer and the fear of aging.