ALLEN, Woody

(b. 1 December 1935 in Brooklyn, New York), prominent filmmaker who evolved during the 1960s from a stand-up comic and writer of humorous sketches to an actor, director, and writer of an ongoing body of film reflecting his unique vision of modern life in general and New York City in particular.

Allen was born Allen Stewart Konigsberg, the only child of Martin Konigsberg, a waiter and jewelry engraver, and Nettie Cherry, a housewife. His early passions included magic and card tricks, the clarinet (which he continues to play), movies, and sports. While a student at Brooklyn's Midwood High School (1949–1953), Allen sent jokes to columnists such as Earl Wilson and Walter Winchell, who paid him per joke and then attributed them to public personalities. This was also the period in which he dropped his birth name for "Woody Allen," a nickname given to him because he always brought the stick to neighborhood stickball games.

Allen was a notably poor student, both in high school and later during brief stints in 1953 at New York University and at City College (now the City University of New York). His early writing was deemed "dirty" by his high school teachers, and his mother was often called to the principal's office because of her son's truancy, bad marks, and habit of causing disturbances. New York University expelled him for poor marks, and he dropped out of City College.

In 1952, while still in high school, Allen had joined the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) as a staff writer. Two years later he married his childhood sweetheart, Harlene Rosen (they divorced in 1960), and left home to make a living from peddling one-liners and writing for a variety of television shows, including Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (1950–1954) on NBC, where Allen competed for attention with the likes of Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. The freewheeling atmosphere was not congenial to the characteristically shy Allen. He was in much more control working as a comedian in Greenwich Village nightclubs, where he began performing in 1960 and developed his comic persona as a bumbling, anxiety-ridden loser. Allen's bespectacled, sad countenance was a perfect match for his neurotic observations about life. His early models were Mort Sahl, a satiric commentator on the political scene, and Bob Hope, a joke teller with impeccable timing.

Allen peppered his stand-up routines with observations about how guilt-ridden he was. He would describe, for example, stealing second base in a ball game and then, overwhelmed by remorse, returning to first. Rather than working as a "stand-up" comic, Allen usually performed—like Sahl—by sitting on a high stool and moving nervously from one bit of autobiographical confession to another. Many wrongly confused this persona, the "mask," with Allen himself. He was meticulous about his material, just as he was later meticulous about his films. Above all else, Allen the artist was in control, even if his character often seemed on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Allen's comedy struck a chord that was just right for the early 1960s: hip, irreverent, and packing just enough psychic truth to make it interesting. If the tall tales of nineteenth-century American humor featured characters who were long on boast and brag, Allen's persona turned those exaggerated claims on their head. Instead of evoking a swaggering frontiersman who could outrun, outride, out-shoot, and beat up any man in the house, Allen boasted that he was the weakest, most sensitive person on the planet. In addition, he was often characterized as a man who was the architect of his own misfortune in the mold of the classical schlemiel.

During the mid-1960s Allen began writing humorous sketches for The New Yorker, and a collection of those pieces appeared as Getting Even in 1971. Comic revenge was crisply parceled out to those who had bedeviled his childhood and early adolescence. A wide range of authority figures, from parents and teachers to the culture in general, was lambasted. Parody was one of Allen's favorite techniques because it allowed him to play against a recognizable target. In the lexicon of prizefighters, he was a counterpuncher—someone who waited for his opponent's punch and then nailed him with an unexpected right cross.

In 1964 Allen was discovered by the producer Charles Feldman and given a chance to write the screenplay for the film What's New, Pussycat? (1965). It is the story of a man who cannot stay faithful to the woman he loves and seems, in retrospect, the perfect fit for Allen's temperament and talent. The film marked Allen's acting debut, as a psychiatric patient, and further enhanced his growing reputation as an overly sensitive, screwed-up plant.

What's New, Pussycat? was a financial success, but Allen was not pleased with the finished project. The problem, largely the same one that had plagued his days as a staff writer for television shows, was control. In 1964 he acquired the rights to a dreadful Japanese spy film (Dagi no Kagi), reedited it, and dubbed in a sound track written and performed by himself, Louise Lasser (whom he married on 2 February 1966 and divorced in 1969), Frank Buxton, and Len Maxwell. The result may technically have been a collaborative effort, but its signature thumbprint was all Allen. In What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), written and performed by Mickey Rose, the quest is for the perfect egg-salad recipe. Over the ensuing years, the film became a cult classic and remains a lively, very funny example of Allen's early years as a filmmaker.

Much the same can be said of Take the Money and Run (1969), a mock documentary about Virgil Starkwell (played by Allen), a flop as a criminal. In one scene, Virgil hands a bank teller a note demanding money that ends with, "I have a gun." Unfortunately Virgil, ever the schlemiel, has such poor penmanship that the teller thinks he has written, "I have a gu b." In another scene, he fashions a gun from a bar of soap (shades of the legendary bank robber Willie Sutton) and is almost free, when a sudden downpour turns his fake gun into soapsuds. During the 1960s, Allen also wrote for the Broadway stage, with Don't Drink the Water, opening in 1966, and Play It Again, Sam, opening in 1969.

Allen's career as one of America's most impressive auteur filmmakers continued from the 1970s into the early 2000s, with a new film nearly every year. In terms of box office success, most were on the modest side—with the notable exception of Annie Hall (1977), which won an Academy Award for best picture. In the 1990s Allen's cinematic efforts were often overshadowed by drama in his personal life. His long-term relationship with the actress Mia Farrow, which produced a son in 1987, ended bitterly in 1992. He married Soon-Yi Previn, one of Farrow's adopted daughters, in 1997. In the new century, Allen continued to follow his own creative instincts and to exercise unparalleled control over his many artistic projects.

Useful books about Allen's life and career include: Bill Adler and Jeff Feinman, Woody Allen: Clown Prince of American Humor (1975); Eric Lax, On Being Funny: Woody Allen and Comedy (1975); Lee Guthrie, Woody Allen: A Biography (1978); and Foster Hirsch, Love, Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life: Woody Allen's Comedy (1981).

Sanford Pinsker