Neil Simon on SWEET CHARITY: 'We played around with the ending a lot.'

In a recent interview with the Telegraph Online, Neil Simon revealed that, when writing the hit musical SWEET CHARITY, the ending changed several times before reaching the Broadway stage.

Simon said, ""We played around with the ending a lot. Fosse wanted me to make it dark. I said, 'Bob, there are things that people are having trouble with in their life. I don't think you want it really dark. It'll make them feel unhappy.'"

Simon also discussed his relationship with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon on the play THE ODD COUPLE. "I worked with them separately a number of times on plays and movies, but they worked absolutely together like a husband and wife that get along not good but anti-good. That's where all the humour came from. When I was writing The Odd Couple I always thought Jack was a wife and Walter was the husband."

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In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where it ran for 678 performances. Six weeks after its closing, his second production, the musical Little Me opened to mixed reviews. Although it failed to attract a large audience, it earnEd Simon his first Tony Award nomination. Overall, he has garnered seventeen Tony nominations and won three. He also won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Lost In Yonkers.

In 1966 Simon had four shows running on Broadway at the same time: Sweet Charity, The Star-Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple, and Barefoot in the Park. His professional association with producer Emanuel Azenberg began with The Sunshine Boys in 1972 and continued with The Good Doctor, God's Favorite, Chapter Two, They're Playing Our Song, I Ought to Be in Pictures, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound, Jake's Women, The Goodbye Girl, and Laughter on the 23rd Floor, among others.

Simon also has written screenplays for more than twenty films. These include adaptations of his own plays and original work too, including The Out-of-Towners, Murder by Death and The Goodbye Girl. He has received four Best Screenplay Academy Award nominations.

Simon has been conferred with two honoris causa degrees; a Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University and a Doctor of Laws from Williams College. He is the namesake of the legitimate Broadway theater the Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, and an honorary member of the Walnut Street Theatre's board of trustees.