Sam Simon co-creator of The Simpsons

born June 6 1955

died March 8, 2015

Sam Simon, who has died aged 59, wrote for US television series, including Taxi, Cheers and the Tracey Ullman Show, before helping launch The Simpsons in 1989.

With the series' international success well established he left after its fourth season with a deal which gave him ongoing royalties from the show. He went on to channel much of his personal fortune into philanthropic causes, including animal welfare charities and a Los Angles food bank.

Growing up in Beverly Hills, California, Simon embraced art and was selling cartoons to San Francisco newspapers while still a student at Stanford University. After graduating, he got his big break when the producers of the hit television show Taxi produced a script he had written in 1981.

In 1988, he joined producer James Brooks and cartoonist Matt Groening in creating a prime-time series out of "The Simpsons" for the Fox TV network. The cartoon began as an animated short primarily featuring Bart Simpson, shown on either side of the advertisement breaks on "The Tracey Ullman Show."

Simon was in charge of the writing staff and helped develop the dysfunctional characters populating the imagined American town of Springfield. The series responded to curiosity about where exactly it was meant to be with an onscreen gag declaring its location was 'any state but yours'.

The show was a smart social satire built around often crass but surprisingly human characters and it became the longest-running sitcom on American television.

Simon won nine Emmy awards for his work as a writer, director and executive producer of "The Simpsons," which won over a global audience with its portrait of oafish everyman Homer Simpson and his wayward family.

Matt Groenig is best known as the creator of The Simpsons, but writers and others close to the programme have emphasised that Simon's role was key in shaping the series' characters and style, particularly as it moved from shorts to half-hour episodes and became a programme in its own right. However he and Groenig clashed regularly and when he departed after four seasons it was not an amicable split. Nevertheless, Simon negotiated a deal to leave the show while retaining a percentage of its future earnings, which would bring him between $20 million and $30 million a year. He is still listed as executive producer in the show's credits.

After he left The Simpsons, Simon worked on other programmes including the George Carlin Show and the Drew Carey Show, and hosted a program on Playboy TV featuring celebrities playing Texas hold'em poker. He became a competitive poker player himself and had a sideline in boxing management.

Simon founded the Sam Simon Foundation in 2002 which rescues dogs from animal shelters and trains them to assist the disabled. The foundation also helps fund Save the Children, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Sea Shepherd Society. "I have a desire to help animals," Simon said in an interview. "The question of whether it makes financial sense, it's my money and I get to do what I want with it. It's an expensive hobby I picked up at the end of my life."

Doctors first gave Simon three to six months to live when he was diagnosed with incurable colon cancer in 2011. Simon decided to give away his fortune, estimated by media at $100 million. Latterly he revealed that he was only now rich briefly and periodically, when cheques from The Simpsons came in, before being distributed to his causes.

His first marriage to actress Jennifer Tilly ended in divorce, as did a brief marriage to Playboy model Jami Ferrell.