Woody Allen mini-bio: Woody Allen (born Allen Stewart Königsberg on December 1, 1935) is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian, and playwright. His large body of work and cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit and humor, have made him one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era. Allen writes and directs his movies and has also acted in the majority of them. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, European cinema and New York City, where he was born and has lived his entire life.
Allen was born and raised in New York City to a Jewish family; his grandparents were Yiddish and German-speaking immigrants. His parents, Martin Königsberg (born on December 25, 1900 in New York; died on January 13, 2001) and Nettea Cherrie (born in 1908 in New York; died in January 2002), and his sister, Letty (born 1943), lived in Midwood, Brooklyn. His parents were both born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His mother worked as a bookkeeper at her family's business. Allen spoke Yiddish during his early years and, after attending Hebrew school for eight years, went to Public School 99 and to Midwood High School. During that time, he lived in part on Avenue K, between East 14th and 15th Streets. Nicknamed "Red" because of his red hair, he impressed students with his extraordinary talent at card and magic tricks. Though in his films and his comedy persona he has often depicted himself as physically inept and socially unpopular, in fact Woody Allen was a popular student, and an adept baseball and basketball player.
To raise money he began writing gags for the agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. According to Allen, his first published joke "was in a gossip column. It read: 'Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O.P.S. prices—over people's salaries.'"
At sixteen, he started writing for stars like Sid Caesar and began calling himself Woody Allen, which would remain his moniker (although it's unclear if Allen ever legally adopted the stage name). He was a gifted comedian from an early age and would later joke that when he was young he was often sent to inter-faith summer camps, where he "was savagely beaten by children of all races and creeds".
After high school, he went to New York University where he studied communication and film, but, never committed as a student, he was thrown off his course due to lack of punctuality and commitment. He later briefly attended City College of New York.
After his false starts at NYU and City College, he became a full-time writer for Herb Shriner, earning $75/week at first. At age 19, he started writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, Caesar's Hour and other television shows. By the time he was working for Sid Caesar, he was making $1500/week; with Caesar he worked alongside Danny Simon, whom Allen credits for helping him to structure his writing style.
In 1961, he started a new career as a stand-up comedian, debuting in a Greenwich Village club called the Duplex. He contributed sketches to the Broadway revue From A to Z, and began writing for the popular Candid Camera television show, even appearing in some episodes. Together with his managers, Allen turned his weaknesses into his strengths, developing his neurotic, nervous, and intellectual persona. He quickly became a successful comedian, and appeared frequently in nightclubs and on television. Allen was popular enough to appear on the cover of Life in 1969 when Play It Again, Sam opened on Broadway.
Allen started writing short stories for magazines (most notably The New Yorker) as well as plays, the best known of which are the Broadway productions Don't Drink the Water (1966) and Play It Again, Sam (1969).
Examples of Allen's standup act can be heard on the albums Standup Comic and Nightclub Years 1964-1968.
Woody Allen has won three Academy Awards and been nominated a total of 21 times: fourteen as a screenwriter, six as a director, and one as an actor. He has more screenwriting Academy Award nominations than any other writer. All are in the "Best Original Screenplay" category. He is tied for fifth all-time with six Best Director nominations. His actors have regularly received both nominations and Academy Awards for their work in Allen films, particularly in the Best Supporting categories.
Annie Hall won four Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Actress). The film received a fifth nomination, for Allen as Best Actor. Hannah and Her Sisters won three, for Best Screenplay and both Best Supporting Actor categories; it was nominated in four other categories, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Despite friendly recognition from the Academy, Allen has consistently refused to attend the ceremony or acknowledge his Oscar wins. He broke this rule only once: at the 2002 Oscars Allen made an unannounced appearance, making a plea for producers to continue filming their movies in New York City after the 9-11 attacks. He was given a standing ovation before introducing a montage of movie clips featuring New York.
Virtually all of Allen's films since Annie Hall begin with the same style of title sequence, incorporating a series of black and white title cards in a vintage font (most often Windsor) reminiscent of silent era films, set to a selection of jazz music that occasionally figures prominently later in the film's story (e.g., Radio Days). Additionally, the cast is placed on one such title card and listed in alphabetical order, and not in the order of the relative "star power" of the actors at the time in which the film was made. This too, is reminiscent of silent era films. There is one minor variation in Deconstructing Harry, where the titles are weaved in with a looped shot. Another exception to this is Manhattan, which opens with a series of black and white still shots of the city set to Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue"; the film's title comes after the opening narration is over.
At age 19, Allen married 16-year-old Harlene Rosen. The marriage lasted five "nettling, unsettling years."
Rosen, whom Allen referred to in his standup act as "the Dread Mrs. Allen," later sued Allen for defamation due to comments at a TV appearance shortly after their divorce. Allen tells a different story on his mid-1960s standup album Standup Comic. In his act, Allen said that Rosen sued him because of a joke he made in an interview. Rosen had been sexually assaulted outside her apartment, and according to Allen, the newspapers reported that she "had been violated." In the interview, Allen said, "Knowing my ex-wife, it probably wasn't a moving violation." In a later interview on The Dick Cavett Show, Allen brought the incident up again where he repeated his comments and that the amount that he was being sued for was "$1 million".
Allen married Louise Lasser in 1966. Lasser would go on to co-star with Allen in Take the Money and Run, in what began a pattern of romantic involvement with his leading ladies. Allen and Lasser divorced in 1969 and Allen did not marry again until 1997. Lasser starred in three Allen films after the divorce, Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), as well as a brief appearance in Stardust Memories. Allen is alleged to have loosely based aspects of the "Harriet Harman" character from Husbands and Wives (the "kamikaze woman") on his relationship with Lasser.
In 1970, Allen cast Diane Keaton in his Broadway play Play It Again, Sam, which had a successful run. During this time she became romantically involved with Allen and appeared in a number of his films, including Annie Hall. Keaton starred in Play It Again, Sam as Tony Roberts's lover. Although Allen and Keaton broke up after a year, she starred in a number of his films after their relationship had ended including Sleeper as a futuristic poet; and in Love and Death as a female character from any Russian novel by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. Annie Hall was very important in Allen and Keaton's careers. Not only that, but it is said that the role was written especially for her, and even the title speaks to this as Diane Keaton's given name is Diane Hall. She then starred in Interiors as a poet again, followed by Manhattan. Later, she had a cameo in Radio Days, and later, she starred in Manhattan Murder Mystery, because Allen wanted to do it when he did Annie Hall. She has not worked with Allen since Manhattan Murder Mystery, although they are good friends.
The film Manhattan is said to have been based on his romantic relationship with Nelkin. Her bit part in Annie Hall ended up on the cutting room floor, and their relationship, though never publicly acknowledged by Allen, reportedly began when she was seventeen years old and a student at New York's Stuyvesant High School.
Starting around 1980, Allen began a 12-year relationship with actress Mia Farrow, who had leading roles in several of his movies from 1982 to 1992. Farrow and Allen never married, but they adopted two children together: Dylan Farrow (who changed her name to Eliza and is now known as Malone) and Moses Farrow (now known as Misha); and had one biological child, Satchel Farrow (now known as Ronan Seamus Farrow). Allen did not adopt any of Farrow's other biological and adopted children, including Soon-Yi Farrow Previn (the adopted daughter of Farrow and Andre Previn, now known as Soon-Yi Previn). Allen and Farrow separated in 1992 after Farrow discovered nude photographs Allen had taken of Previn. In her autobiography, What Falls Away (New York: Doubleday, 1997), Farrow says Allen admitted to a relationship with Previn.
After Allen and Farrow separated, a long public legal battle for the custody of their three children began. During the proceedings, Farrow alleged that Allen had sexually molested their adopted daughter Malone, who was then seven years old. The judge eventually concluded that the sex abuse charges were inconclusive, but called Allen's conduct with Malone "grossly inappropriate". She called the report of the team that investigated the issue "sanitized and, therefore, less credible" and said she had "reservations about the reliability of the report." She also called Allen's conduct with Soon-Yi "inappropriate." Farrow ultimately won the custody battle over their children. Allen was denied visitation rights with Malone and could only see Ronan under supervision. Misha, who was then 14, chose not to see his father.
In a 2005 Vanity Fair interview, Allen estimated that, despite the scandal's damage to his reputation, Farrow's discovery of Allen's attraction to Soon-Yi Previn, by accidentally finding nude photographs of her, was "just one of the fortuitous events, one of the great pieces of luck in my life. [...] It was a turning point for the better." Of his relationship with Farrow, he said "I'm sure there are things that I might have done differently. [...] Probably in retrospect I should have bowed out of that relationship much earlier than I did."
Shortly after separating from Farrow in 1992, Allen openly continued his relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, Farrow's adopted daughter. Even though Allen and Previn denied he was ever her stepfather, the relationship drew much public and media scrutiny. At the time, Allen was 57 and Previn was 22.
Allen and Previn married in 1997. The couple later adopted two daughters, naming them Bechet and Manzie after jazz musicians Sidney Bechet and Manzie Johnson. Woody Allen with Jerry Zigmont and Simon Wettenhall performing at Vienne Jazz Festival, Vienne, France. Woody Allen with Jerry Zigmont and Simon Wettenhall performing at Vienne Jazz Festival, Vienne, France.
Allen is a passionate fan of jazz which is often featured prominently in his movies' soundtracks. He has played the clarinet since adolescence and chose his stage name from an idol, famed clarinetist Woody Herman. He has performed publicly at least since the late-1960s, notably with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on the soundtrack of Sleeper. One of his earliest televised performances was on The Dick Cavett Show on October 20, 1971.
Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band[23] play every Monday evening at Manhattan's Carlyle Hotel, specializing in classic New Orleans jazz from the early twentieth century. The documentary film Wild Man Blues (directed by Barbara Kopple) documents a 1996 European tour by Allen and his band, as well as his relationship with Previn. The band has released two CDs: The Bunk Project (1993) and the soundtrack of Wild Man Blues (1997).
Apart from Wild Man Blues directed by Barbara Kopple, there are a number of other documentaries featuring Woody Allen, including: the 2002 cable-television documentary Woody Allen: a Life in Film, directed by Time Magazine film critic Richard Schickel, which interlaces interviews of Allen with clips of his films; and Meetin' WA, a short interview of Allen by renowned French director Jean-Luc Godard.
Waiting for Woody Allen is a 2004 short film parody of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." From 1976 to 1984, Stuart Hample wrote and drew Inside Woody Allen, a comic strip based on Allen's film persona. "Central Park West Stories", (Baldini Castoldi Dalai publisher, 2005) by Glauco Della Sciucca (Italian contributor to Columbia Journalism Review, The New Yorker, The Jewish Week, since September 2003) are inspired by Allen. "Death of an Interior Decorator" is a song on Death Cab for Cutie's album Transatlanticism that was inspired by Woody Allen's Interiors.
The character George Costanza, from the sitcom Seinfeld, was originally performed as a caricature of Woody Allen, according to Jason Alexander. In one episode of Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer talks about being a cast member of Allen's movie project and his famous oneliner "These pretzels are making me thirsty".
Allen spent at least 30 years undergoing psychoanalysis, some three days a week. Many of his films contain a psychoanalysis scene. Even the film Antz, a cartoon where he only voices Z, the lead character, begins with a classic piece of Allen analysis schtick.
Moment Magazine says "it drove his self-absorbed work". John Baxter, author of Woody Allen - A Biography, wrote "Like Catholic confession, Allen's form of analysis let the penitent go free to sin again," and that "Allen obviously found analysis stimulating, even exciting."
Allen says he ended his psychotherapy visits around the time he began his relationship with Previn. He says he still is claustrophobic and agoraphobic.
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