Ed Simmons; TV Comedy Writer Won 5 Emmy Awards

Ed Simmons, an Emmy Award-winning comedy writer and producer who spent his later years delighting senior citizens with his class “Comedy in TV--Then and Now,” has died. He was 78.

Simmons died Monday in Los Angeles, said Rachelle Smith, spokeswoman for the Older Adult Service and Information System (OASIS).

Specializing in comedy throughout his life, Simmons claimed that his career began when, at age 9, he wrote a knock-knock joke that he sold for $2.

He began at the beginning in television, working with Norman Lear writing for Martha Raye specials and “The Martin and Lewis Show” from 1950 on.

After Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis went separate ways, Simmons wrote Martin’s first solo nightclub act, developing the drinking, nonchalant persona that became Martin’s trademark.

As writer and producer, Simmons later worked on variety shows for Red Skelton, George Gobel and Carol Burnett. He produced the series “Welcome Back, Kotter” and “Mama’s Family.”

Amassing five Emmys during his career, Simmons also wrote and produced a number of specials in the 1970s and 1980s. Among them were “Rowan and Martin Bite the Hand That Feeds Them,” “An Amateur’s Guide to Love,” “Keep the Faith,” “Hotel 90” and “The Rodney Dangerfield Show: I Can’t Take It No More.”

Simmons approached a retirement career in volunteerism with as much gusto as he had approached crafting comedy sketches. He offered his talents to the Braille Institute and the Beverly Hills Library, which awarded him a certificate designating him as “Ed Simmons, Cultural Attache and Occasional Poet.”

The veteran writer devoted much of his time to OASIS and his entertaining educational program about television comedy. In addition to offering his own advice on comedy writing, Simmons enriched weekly seminars with appearances by celebrities who did short routines and interacted with his pupils.

“I refuse to teach writing,” Simmons told The Times in 1992. “Instead of having them write about how the Cossacks took their village 50 years ago, I ask them to write about their first love affair. The ones who complained that they don’t know how to write suddenly write.”

He often spoke of his gratifying work with senior citizens. But he joked that he wasn’t one of them, insisting instead as a septuagenarian: “I’m just a kid.”

Simmons’ volunteer efforts earned him an “Angel Amidst” award in 1996 from the city of West Hollywood, where he lived.

He had published one book of poetry, “I’m Okay and Neither Are You.” A second book, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Dotage,” will soon be published.

Simmons is survived by a daughter, Erica.