Allen, Woody

Allen, Woody (1935- ), American film director, actor, and writer, whose highly personal films are often humorous depictions of neurotic urban characters preoccupied with love and death. Born Allen Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn, New York, he began to write quips for newspaper columnists at the age of 15, using the name Woody Allen. He then wrote for radio and television performers and joined the staff of television comedian Sid Caesar after graduating from high school. From 1961 to 1964 he worked as a nightclub comedian, where he was spotted by a film producer and hired to write and play in What’s New, Pussycat? (1965). He first directed his own film, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, in 1966, marking the beginning of a long association with United Artists. Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972) followed. All featured Allen in his characteristic role of the befuddled underachiever.

He turned to more serio-comic themes with Love and Death (1975) and Annie Hall (1977), the latter winning Academy Awards (Oscars) for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress, although Allen famously snubbed the Oscar ceremony because it coincided with his weekly appearance playing jazz clarinet at Michael's Pub in New York. Both films starred Diane Keaton, who paired with Allen in many of his films.

Another film, Interiors (1978), was a sombre psychological drama, while Stardust Memories (1980) was an obviously autobiographical work. Around this time he also made what is regarded by many critics as his greatest film, Manhattan (1979), a deft comedy about the romantic anxieties of a New York television comedy-writer, famed for its inspired title sequence set to Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin and luminous black and white photography by Gordon Willis. Allen’s 1982 film, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, the first of a new association with Orion Pictures, was also the first of many to feature his future partner, Mia Farrow.

Subsequent films include the spoof newsreel documentary Zelig (1983); the Chekhovian family saga Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Another Woman (1988), a reflective piece about a middle-aged female academic, played with great subtlety by Gena Rowlands; Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), an ambitious ensemble drama combining comedy and higher moral themes; the fly-on-the-wall dissection of married life Husbands and Wives (1992); the Jazz Age mob-comedy Bullets Over Broadway (1994); and the musical Everyone Says I Love You (1996).

After an acrimonious separation from Farrow in 1992 over his affair with her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, Allen made Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Celebrity (1998), two films that were notably more cynical in tone to his previous work. Allen and Soon-Yi married in 1997. In 1999 Allen wrote and directed Sweet and Lowdown, a comedic biopic about the life of a fictional 1930s jazz guitarist, Emmett Ray, starring Sean Penn. After signing a new distribution deal with DreamWorks, he also starred in, as well as writing and directing, the crime capers Small Time Crooks (2000) and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), and Hollywood Ending (2002), about an ageing film-maker who tries to cover up the fact that he has been struck blind during the making of a film. Allen returned to romantic comedy in 2003 with Anything Else, and in 2004 wrote and directed Melinda and Melinda, a comedy exploring the same events from contrasting standpoints, comedic and tragic. Match Point (2005), Allen’s first film made in Britain, a morality tale of ambition and social climbing set amid London’s high society, starring Scarlett Johansson, was his biggest commercial success in two decades. He remained in the English capital for the murder-mysteries Scoop (2006) and Cassandra's Dream (2007).

Earlier in his career, Allen wrote and starred in the Broadway hit plays Don’t Drink the Water (1966; film, 1969) and Play It Again, Sam (1969; film, 1972), and in 2003 he made a belated debut as a theatre director with the off-Broadway production Writer’s Block. He has published two collections of short humorous works, Getting Even (1971) and Without Feathers (1976). He was the subject of the documentary Wild Man Blues (1997; Barbara Kopple), which followed Allen on a European tour with his New Orleans Jazz Band.