Alan Simpson was a British writer best known penning the U.K. comedy Steptoe and Son, which served as the inspiration for the classic NBC series Sanford and Son, starring Redd Foxx as a widower junk dealer living in the Watts district of Los Angeles.
Simpson also served as a writer on the British series The Tony Hancock Show, Hancock’s Half Hour, Citizen James, Frankie Howerd, Galton and Simpson Comedy and Comedy Playhouse.
He wrote Steptoe and Son with his longtime writing partner Ray Galton, whom he met when they were both patients in a sanitarium, and began doing radio comedy as a part of their therapy.
Simpson died February 8, 2017, in the United Kingdom. He was 87.