He is the son of Cedric Michael Raphael, an employee of the Shell Oil Co., and Irene Rose Mauser. With his parents, he emigrated to Putney, England in 1938. He was educated at Copthorne Preparatory School, Charterhouse School (Lockites), and St John's College, Cambridge, he won an Oscar for the screenplay for the 1965 movie Darling, and two years later an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for Two for the Road. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1967 film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd directed by John Schlesinger. He married Sylvia Betty Glatt on January 17, 1955 and their children are Paul Simon a film producer, Sarah Natasha (1960-2001) who was a painter, and Stephen Matthew Joshua a screenwriter.