Marvin Neil Simon was born in the Bronx on July 4, 1927. He was the second son of Irving Simon, a Jewish travelling salesman, and his wife Mamie.

Neil Simon served in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1946. During this period, he began his writing career working for the Army camp newspaper.

Neil Simon's brother Danny (1918-2005) was also a TV comedy writer. He worked with Neil on The Phil Silvers Show and Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. When Neil decided to shift towards writing for the theatre, Danny chose to stick with television. He would go on to write for such popular shows as My Three Sons, The Carol Burnett Show, Diff'rent Strokes, and The Facts of Life. Although overshadowed by his more famous brother, Danny was very well respected within the industry. Woody Allen, who worked with Danny on Your Show of Shows, once said, "Everything I learned about comedy, I learned from Danny Simon."

During the 1966-67 season, Neil Simon had four Broadway productions running simultaneously: Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Sweet Charity, and The Star Spangled Girl. He is the only playwright ever to have had four Broadway productions running concurrently.

In 1983, Neil Simon began to win over many critics who had previously dismissed him as a mere "writer of gags" with Brighton Beach Memoirs, the first play in his autobiographical trilogy. This play, which chronicled his stormy childhood, was soon followed by Biloxi Blues (1985) which detailed his brief stint in the Army and Broadway Bound (1986) which covered the beginning of his career in television.

In 1991, Neil Simon won a Pulitzer Prize for Lost in Yonkers which tells the story of two young boys who are forced to spend a year living with their domineering grandmother when their father takes a job in another state. Lost in Yonkers also won a Tony Award for Best Play and is generally considered one of Simon's finest works.

Neil Simon did NOT win a Tony Award for Barefoot in the Park. During the course of his career, he DID won Tony Awards for The Odd Couple (1965), Biloxi Blues (1985), and Lost in Yonkers (1991).

The Alvin Theater at 250 W. 52nd Street on Broadway was renamed the Neil Simon Theater on June 23, 1983, shortly after the opening of Brighton Beach Memoirs, the first play in Simon's critically acclaimed coming-of-age trilogy. In 1985, the Neil Simon Theater was designated a New York City landmark.

On March 2, 2004, Neil Simon received a kidney transplant donated by his longstanding publicist Bill Evans. Simon told the New York Times shortly before the operation that he and Evans had been friends for 25 years. "It's wonderful of him to do this," Simon said.

Barefoot in the Park - Total Performances: 1530; Brighton Beach Memoirs - Total Performances: 1299; The Odd Couple - Total Performances: 966; Lost in Yonkers - Total Performances: 780