Simon James Holliday Gray was born on 21 October 1936 on Hayling Island, in Hampshire, England, where his father, James, a G.P. who became a pathologist later, worked. In 1939, during World War II, when he was three years old, he was evacuated to Montreal, Canada, to live in "a house where his grandfather and [his grandfather's] alcoholic wife were attended upon by a younger aunt"; in 1945, when he was nearly 10, he returned to England, where he was educated at Westminster School, in London. In 1965, he was appointed a lecturer in English at Queen Mary College, London. In 1967, he received a B.A. from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia; and, in 1971, another B.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge.

He married his first wife, Beryl Kevern, in 1965; they had two children, a son, Benjamin, and a daughter, Lucy, and were divorced in 1997. During their marriage, he had an eight-year affair with another Queen Mary lecturer, Victoria Katherine Rothschild (1953— ), a daughter of Sir Nathaniel Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild; in 1997, after his divorce, they married, living together in west London, until his death on 6 August 2008.

In 2004 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama and literature.

Suffering from both lung cancer and prostate cancer and related ailments at the time of his death, he died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, on 7 August 2008, at the age of 71.

When he was still in his 20s, he began his writing career as a novelist with Colmain, published by Faber and Faber in 1963. His career in drama began when he adapted one of his own short stories, The Caramel Crisis, for television. He subsequently wrote a number of plays for, amongst others, The Wednesday Play and Play for Today BBC anthology series, frequently in collaboration with the producer Kenith Trodd. Gray wrote 40 plays and screenplays for the stage, television, and film and 8 volumes of memoirs based on his diaries.

Wise Child, an adaptation of a TV play deemed too shocking for the small screen, was his first stage play. It starred Simon Ward and Alec Guinness and was produced by Michael Codron at Wyndham's Theatre in 1967. Subsequently, he wrote original plays for both radio and television and adaptations, including: an TV adaptation of The Rector’s Daughter, by F. M. Mayor); stage adaptations of Tartuffe and The Idiot. His original television screenplays include Running Late, After Pilkington, Unnatural Pursuits, and A Month in the Country. His 1971 play Butley, produced by Codron, began a long creative partnership with Harold Pinter as director (of both the play and the film versions) and continued the partnership with the actor Alan Bates begun with Gray's 1967 television play Death of a Teddy Bear; Bates starred in 11 of Gray's works, while Pinter directed 10 separate productions of Gray's works for stage, film, and television, beginning with Butley; the last one was a stage production of The Old Masters, starring Peter Bowles and Edward Fox.

As with Butley (1971) and Otherwise Engaged (1975), whose London productions and films both starred Bates, and Quartermaine's Terms (1981), starring Fox, Gray "often returned to the subject of the lives and trials of educated intellectuals."

He wrote many other successful stage plays, including The Common Pursuit, The Late Middle Classes, Hidden Laughter, Japes, Close of Play, The Rear Column, and Little Nell, several of which he directed himself.

In 1984, at the suggestion of Robert McCrum, Faber editor-in-chief at that time, he kept a diary of the London premiere of The Common Pursuit (directed by Pinter at the Lyric Hammersmith), resulting in the first of his 8 volumes of theatre-related and personal memoirs, An Unnatural Pursuit (Faber 1985), and culminating in the critically-acclaimed trilogy entitled The Smoking Diaries (Granta, 2004—2008).

Gray's play about George Blake, Cell Mates (1995), starring Rik Mayall, Stephen Fry and Simon Ward, attracted media attention when Stephen Fry abruptly "fled to Bruges" after the third performance, thus leaving the show without its lead actor. Gray subsequently wrote his theatrical memoir Fat Chance, providing a scathingly-hilarious account of the episode.

In August 2008, shortly before his death, he attracted further press attention with his criticism of the Royal National Theatre's "cowardice" in dealing with the subject of radical Islam.

Gray's final volume of diaries, Coda, "so named because it rounds off the trilogy of 'Smoking Diaries' (The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer and The Last Cigarette) a meditation on death, or rather dying, an account of living on borrowed time," was published posthumously by Faber and Faber and Granta in November 2008. From 8 to 12 December 2008, in five 15-minute episodes, actor Toby Stephens read from this "candid and darkly comic account of coming to terms with terminal cancer" for BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.

Simon Gray: A Celebration, directed by Harry Burton, who directed Gray's last stage production in Spring 2008 (Quartermaine's Terms at Theatre Royal, Windsor), was held at the Comedy Theatre, in London, on 15 March 2009.

A production entitled The Last Cigarette, based on Gray's and Hugh Whitemore's adaptation of the three volumes of his memoirs called The Smoking Diaries and directed by Richard Eyre, is being staged at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, England, through 11 April 2009. On 28 April 2009, after previewing from 21 April, the production, in which Felicity Kendal, Nicholas Le Prevost, and Jasper Britton all continue to "portray the playwright through the course of the play," transfers to the Trafalgar Studios, in London's West End, where it runs through 1 August 2009.

An official web site was launched in October 2009.

The Late Middle Classes finally received its London premiere on 27 May 2010 at the Donmar Warehouse in London, directed by David Leveaux and starring Helen McCrory, Eleanor Bron, Peter Sullivan and Robert Glenister. The original production of the play, directed by Harold Pinter, was prevented from reaching its intended West End theatre by a musical about a boy band. Gray's experience of this production is the subject of his diary "Enter a Fox".

The Definitive Simon Gray. In 4 vols. London: Faber, 1992—1994.

Vol. 1: Butley and Other Plays (1992). ISBN 0571162231.

Vol. 2: Otherwise Engaged and Other Plays (1992). ISBN 0571162401.

Vol. 3 (1993). ISBN 0571164536.

Vol. 4 (1994). ISBN 0571166598.

Key Plays. Introd. Harold Pinter. London: Faber, 2002. ISBN 057121634X. (Includes: Butley; Otherwise Engaged; Close of Play; Quartermaine's Terms; and The Late Middle Classes.)

Articles and book reviews

Barber, Lynn. "'I wrote a lot of my plays drunk. It liberated me'." Guardian. Guardian Media Group, 4 Apr. 2004. Web. 30 Mar. 2009.

Billington, Michael. "Memo to the BBC: Bring Back Simon Gray's TV Plays". Guardian, Theatre Blog. Guardian Media Group, 16 Mar. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2009.

"Gray, Simon." Who's Who in the Theatre. 15th and 16th eds. London: Pitman, 1972 & 1977; 17th ed. London: Gale, 1981.

Scurr, Martin. "Ask the Doctor: By the Way". Mail on Sunday, Health. Daily Mail and General Trust, 26 Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2009. (" ... My friend and patient Simon Gray, the playwright, died on August 7. His most recent book, The Last Cigarette, is part of his memoirs, The Smoking Diaries." [Book rev.])

"Simon Gray". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2009. Web. 7 Apr. 2009.

Taylor, Alan. "Benefit of the Dowt". Sunday Herald. SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd., 25 Apr. 2004. ProQuest. FindArticles.com (BNET). Web. 6 Apr. 2009. (Book rev. of The Smoking Diaries.)

Interviews

Fort, Viola. "Simon Gray". Untitled Books. UntitledBooks.com, 6 June 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2009. ("His reflective, moving and often very funny memoirs have brought Simon Gray a whole new readership outside theatre circles. The third volume, The Last Cigarette, is a triumph. He tells Viola Fort how memory is an act of imagination.")

Hattenstone, Simon. "Interview: Simon Gray: The Butt-ends of His Days". Guardian. Guardian Media Group, 28 July 2007. Web. 30 Mar. 2009. ("His memoirs made him a poster boy for smoking, but at 70 playwright Simon Gray has finished the final volume and is finally cutting down, he tells Simon Hattenstone.")

Obituaries and tributes

Alberge, Dalya. "Simon Gray, Self-Deprecating Writer and Smoker Dies". Times, Obituary. News Corporation, 8 Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2009.

Billington, Michael. "Remembering Simon Gray". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group, 8 Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2009.

Gardner, Lyn. "Simon Gray: Playwright, Diarist and Novelist Who Bridged the Gulf between Intellectual and Popular Drama. The Guardian. Guardian Media Group, 7 Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2009.

Gould, Tony. Appreciation: Simon Gray, 1936—2008: Smoker, Gambler, Teacher and Writer with an Enviable Gift for Friendship". Observer. Guardian Media Group, 10 Aug. 2008. Web. 30 Mar. 2009.

"Simon Gray: Rakish and Versatile Playwright". Times Online, Obituaries. News Corporation, 8 Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2009.

Spencer, Charles. "Simon Gray: 'I will never forget his kindness' ". Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 15 Aug. 2009. Web. 30 Mar. 2009.

Strachan, Alan. "Simon Gray, Playwright, Novelist and Author of a Series of Hilarious Irascible Memoirs". Independent. Independent News & Media, 8 Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2009.

Weber, Bruce. "Simon Gray, Playwright, Dies at 71: Aimed Wit at Intellectuals, and Himself". New York Times, Obituary. New York Times Company, 8 Aug. 2008. Web. 30 Mar. 2009.

Young, Josa. "The Late Great Simon Gray". The Huffington Post, 25 Mar. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2009.

Performance reviews

Theatre Record and its annual Indexes.