TV Comedy Writer Danny Simon Dies

Mr. Simon wrote one play, "The Convertible Girl," a comedy about a Jewish man who woos a Catholic girlfriend. It never made Broadway but played often at Jewish community centers.

"By Neil's standards of success, I'm a nothing," he once told People magazine. "I've always been trying to prove something to people. I should have gone further with the talent I have."

Daniel Simon was born Dec. 18, 1918, in the Bronx, N.Y. Eight years later came Neil, whom he nicknamed "Doc" after Mr. Simon saw him playing with a toy stethoscope.

Their "playboy" father abandoned the family, Mr. Simon later said. "Sometimes he'd lose jobs because he was out chasing women. Even when he had money, he'd withhold it from us. Neil and I lived in that kind of blackness."

Constant joking with his younger brother helped guard against the painful absence of their father. Much of the sibling rivalry stemmed from bids for their mother's attention, Neil Simon later said.

At 19, Mr. Simon was working as an assistant buyer at Abraham and Straus department store in Brooklyn and was asked to be part of the annual employee show. He said he flubbed his lines so much that he took to ad-libbing. The angry producer told him to do his own skit.

He went home and tried out some lines on his brother. "Neil would sit there doing his homework," he told a reporter years later. "And I'd say, 'Be my sounding board, just sit there and talk to me.' And he would come up with these funny lines, just like he always had. I didn't teach him to be funny. God gave him that."

After his brother left to write plays, Mr. Simon became head writer on "The Danny Thomas Show" and contributed to "The Carol Burnett Show," "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life." He also wrote jokes for Alan King, Mac Davis and Joan Rivers.

In retirement, Mr. Simon lectured about comedy writing. He disliked teaching comedy as if it were a primer in the theories of Aristotle, saying, "Aristotle hasn't written anything funny in years." He told students to watch John Cleese's comedy show "Fawlty Towers" because, as he liked to point out, the angry humor stemmed from character.

His marriage to Arlene Friedman Simon ended in divorce.

Besides his brother, of New York, survivors include two children, Michael Simon of Portland and Valerie Simon of Sherman Oaks, Calif.; and two grandchildren.