Here's a short but nice article about Neil Simon, who's about to receive the Mark Twain Award for humor. The piece makes the usual mistake of thinking Woody Allen wrote for Your Show of Shows and Mr. Simon seems incapable of being interviewed without telling everyone that he made a bad financial deal on The Odd Couple, like we're supposed to feel sorry for him. I was especially struck by this sentence…
After some recent health problems — which included the transplant of a kidney donated to him by his former publicist, Bill Evans — Simon and Joyce sold their Bel Air, Calif., home and now live in Manhattan year-round.
Former publicist? Former publicist? The man gave you one of his kidneys, Neil, and now he's your former publicist? What did your current publicist promise you? A leg?