Danny Simon, who died Tuesday at 86, was a comedy writer for such early television hits as “Your Show of Shows” and “The Phil Silvers Show.” His fraught relationship with his brother, the playwright Neil Simon, supplied fodder for plays and gossip.

The two Simons began their show business careers as writing partners for a star of CBS radio, Robert Q. Lewis, shortly after World War II. In 1961, Danny thought of the scenario that became Neil’s “The Odd Couple.” Fastidious Felix Unger was based on Danny, who was recently divorced at the time.

It was not his first appearance in a Neil Simon play, nor would it be his last; characters based on Danny are in “Plaza Suite,” “Chapter Two,” and “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” filled with backstage high jinks based on their years on “Your Show of Shows.” Danny joked that more plays had been written about him than about Julius Caesar or Abraham Lincoln. When asked by Time magazine why he wept upon seeing the tender portrait of himself in “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” he replied, “Because I didn’t write it.”

The reply illustrated the mixture of humor and rivalry that characterized the brothers’ relationship, which was ambiguous and unusually public.

“He was a character (in more ways than one) in at least nine or 10 of my plays,” Neil said in a statement after his brother’s death. “I’m sure he will probably be there again in many plays to come.”

Daniel Simon was raised in the Bronx and Washington Heights in a combative household. His father, a clothing salesman, periodically abandoned his family. Danny became his younger brother’s protector – Neil is eight years younger – and took an active role in raising him.

The brothers occasionally sold jokes to comedians and radio shows, and once even collaborated on a set of skits for the annual employees’ show at Abraham & Straus, where Danny worked. Later, he went to work at the publicity department of Warner Brothers and found a place for Neil in the mailroom. It was then that they auditioned as comedy writers for Goodman Ace at CBS. “He had a cigar in his mouth and looked like George S. Kaufman – and he read one joke and fell flat off his chair,” Danny recalled in typically florid language to the Washington Post in 1986. “The cigar flew out of his mouth and he said, ‘Okay, when do you guys start working?'”

The Simons’ writing partnership lasted nine years, during which they moved from radio to television, where they provided material for many shows, including “The Red Buttons Show” and “Broadway Open House,” and stunts for “Beat the Clock.”

When “Your Show of Shows” ended in 1954, the brothers split up as a writing team, although both contributed sketches to the Broadway productions of “Catch a Star” (1955) and “New Faces of 1956.” Neil went to write for Phil Silvers on “You’ll never Get Rich,” while Danny became head writer of NBC’s “Colgate Comedy Hour.” There, he first encountered a new protege, Woody Allen. Mr. Allen would later tell his biographer, Eric Lax, “I’ve learned a couple of things on my own since and modified things he taught me, but everything, unequivocally, that I learned about comedy writing I learned from him.”

Simon then moved to California, and in 1961 landed the head writing job on “The Danny Thomas Show.” That year Neil Simon had his first Broadway show, “Come Blow Your Horn.” Danny wanted to direct it, and when Neil demurred, Danny refused to attend opening night.

Still, the brothers remained close enough that when Danny got stuck on a first draft of “The Odd Couple,” he gave it to Neil. “I kept looking for excuses not to write it,” Danny said. “I was like a Chinese juggler with all the plates going.” The play, starring Art Carney and Walter Matthau, opened in 1965 and ran for 966 performances, and then became a movie and a TV series. Neil gave Danny a one-sixth interest in it, but no formal credit. Danny occasionally directed his brother’s plays, including a London production of “The Sunshine Boys” and a Los Angeles production of “Plaza Suite” with Carol Burnett and George Kennedy. He was fired as director of a female version of “The Odd Couple” in 1985, before it made it to Broadway.

Danny continued to write for television, including scripting appearances by Joan Rivers on the “Tonight Show” and working on “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life.” In recent years, Danny taught comedy-writing seminars at universities and traveled. He remained on good terms with his ex-wife, the one who inspired “The Odd Couple.”

He gave frequent interviews, and although he wisecracked his way through them, it was evident that he was not exactly comfortable in his skin. Asked about his diminutive stature – he was six inches shorter than his brother – Danny said, “Yeah, but he’s standing on his money.”

“For a writer, I really hate to write,” he once said. “Neil is crazy. He thinks he likes writing. That’s why he’s such a success.”

Daniel Simon

Born December 18, 1918, in the Bronx; died July 26 after a stroke at Robison Jewish Health Center in Portland, Ore.; survived by a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren.