Problem: Simon was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy Simon (nee Ligeti), a homemaker, and Bernard Simon, a former journalist and then public relations director for B'nai B'rith for 20 years. In March 1977, when Simon was still in high school, Simon's father was one of a group of over 140 people held hostage (and later released) in Washington, D.C. by former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis in the Hanafi Siege. Simon was raised in a Jewish family with roots that originated in Eastern Europe and Hungary (his maternal grandfather had changed his surname from "Leibowitz" to "Ligeti"). He has a brother, Gary Simon, and a sister, Linda Evans, who died in 1990.

The publishers of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets were eager for a screen adaptation and submitted it to numerous directors but there was little interest. Simon suggested that they send the book to Baltimore native and film director Barry Levinson. Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers. The project became the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer.  Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise. He collaborated with his old college friend David Mills to write the season two premiere "Bop Gun". The episode was based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana and featured Robin Williams in a guest starring role that garnered the actor an Emmy nomination. Simon and Mills won the WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for the episode. Simon also received Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award in 2010.  Simon left his job with the Baltimore Sun in 1995 to work full-time on Homicide: Life on the Street during the production of the show's fourth season. Simon wrote the teleplay for the season four episodes "Justice: Part 2" and "Scene of the Crime" (with Anya Epstein). For season five he was the show's story editor and continued to contribute teleplays writing the episodes "Bad Medicine" and "Wu's on First?" (again with Epstein). He was credited as a producer on the show's sixth and seventh seasons. He wrote the teleplays for parts two and three of the sixth season premiere "Blood Ties" (the latter marking his third collaboration with Epstein) and provided the story for the later sixth season episodes "Full Court Press" and "Finnegan's Wake" (with James Yoshimura). He provided the story for the seventh season episodes "Shades of Gray" (with Julie Martin), "The Same Coin" (again with Yoshimura) and "Self Defense" (with Eric Overmyer). Simon wrote the story and teleplay for the seventh season episodes "The Twenty Percent Solution" and "Sideshow: Part 2". Simon, Martin and teleplay writer T. J. English won the Humanitas Prize in the 60 minutes category for the episode "Shades of Gray". Simon was nominated for a second WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for his work on "Finnegan's Wake" with Yoshimura and Mills (who wrote the teleplay).  Simon has said that he thought the show was a "remarkable drama" but that it did not reflect the book. He has also said that when writing for the show he had to put his experiences of the real detectives aside as the characters became quite different, particularly in their more philosophical approach to the job. Simon said that TV must find shorthand ways of referencing anything real.

Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

Answer with quotes: Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers.

Question:
Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827 - February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century." Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War.
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (nee Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.  In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.  Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.  Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".  By 1846, at the start of the Mexican-American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
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As a youth did Lew have any jobs?

Answer:
Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office