Marvin Neil Simon was born on July 4, 1927 in the Bronx, New York City and grew up in Manhattan during the Great Depression. He briefly attended New York University (1944-1945) and the University of Denver (1945-1946) before dropping out to work as a mailroom clerk in the Warner Brothers offices in Manhattan. He later quit his job to join his brother Danny in writing radio and television scripts. Their revues for Camp Tamiment in Pennsylvania caught the attention of Sid Caesar, who hired them for his TV comedy series Your Show of Shows. This led to two Emmy Award nominations and the invitation to write for Phil Silvers and Sergeant Bilko.

Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, opened in 1961 and was a huge success. His second production, Little Me, opened just six weeks after the closing of Come Blow Your Horn. Although it failed to attract a large audience, Little Me earned Simon his first Tony Award nomination. He has gone on to write more than 30 plays and has 17 Tony nominations, winning three times. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1991 for Lost in Yonkers (produced here in 2006). Simon has also written screenplays for more than 30 films and he has received four Best Screenplay Academy Award nominations. To top off his career achievements, Simon is the namesake of the Broadway Theatre, The Neil Simon Theatre.

The Sunshine Boys, produced on Broadway in 1972 and later adapted for film in 1975 (with Walter Mathau and George Burns) and television in 1997 (with Woody Allen and Peter Falk), reflects on the twentieth century Jewish-American experience. The play focuses on two aging one-time vaudeville comedians (Jack Albertson and Sam Levene played the original leading roles on Broadway) known as 'Lewis and Clark', who over the course of forty or so years not only grew to hate each other but never spoke to each other throughout the final year of their act. Then, CBS invites them to reunite for a special on the history of comedy, representing the vaudeville era at its best.

Simon was inspired by two venerable vaudeville teams, Smith and Dale (who unlike Lewis and Clark were inseparable lifelong friends) and Gallagher and Shean (who inspired the undercurrent of hostility as they were successful professionally but argumentative personally).

With Simon's track record, there was little doubt that the 1975 film adaptation of The Sunshine Boys would become a huge hit. The decision to cast Mathau and Burns as the feuding vaudeville comedy team was the perfect choice. Burns' role spearheaded him into one of the most amazing comebacks in movie history. His role as 'Lewis' in The Sunshine Boys was his first film role in 36 years, and at the age of 80 he won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. The film won additional awards, including the Golden Globes for Best Film (musical/comedy) and a Best Actor award for Mathau. Burns' role gave him a new career in Hollywood and he played roles in three more movies before he passed away in 1996, just a few weeks after his 100th birthday.