Woody Allen

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Personal

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Notable

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Family

American comedian, writer, actor and film director, screenwriter, playwright and musician, gifted and appealing. He was the writer and director of the 1977 film "Annie Hall" which won four Oscars in 1978. Other films include "Sleeper," and "Love and Death." The ultimate pessimist, Allen is an anhedonic, one who is psychologically unable to enjoy himself; in therapy for over 20 years, perhaps the funniest neurotic of the 20th century. For the first eight years of his Freudian analysis, he went daily. Totally cerebral, he apologizes for not being funny in private. Known for his painful courtesy, his generosity and his frantic attempts to avoid publicity, he likes to shop for antiques, visit art galleries and museums. Slight in stature with thinning hair and a worried expression, Allen is 5'6" (1.67 m), 120 lbs (54 kg). A renaissance man, he plays clarinet in a club on Manhattan's East Side, Dixieland and jazz. He never smokes or drinks and washes down his housekeeper's gourmet meals with Coca-Cola. The son of a job hopper, he started life being critical, gloomy and grouchy. He detested going to Temple, hated school and got bad grades in everything except English. He was also fearful, filled with nameless anxiety that expressed as fear of water, heights, airline stewardesses, dishwashers of Holiday Inns, but most profoundly, fear of the dark and of death. Terribly shy and introverted, he practiced magic tricks until he excelled, along with track and baseball. About the age of 16, he discovered another area of success; he was able to crack up his classmates with his quips. He began to sell his gags to columnists and journalists, knocking out some 30 one-liners a day. It was then he changed his name to Woody Allen. At 19, he married a 17-year-old student, Harlene Rosen. The marriage lasted five years. By then, the young Allen was making $1,500 a week writing gags for name personalities. He acquired a manager who put him on the club circuit, speaking his own material with a mournfully serious delivery, an anguished confrontation with the audience. He used the material of his own experience, "My parents believed in God and carpeting," and "We didn't have the money to buy a dog so my parents got me an ant. I called it Spot." He married a second time, to actress Louise Lasser, and they had several good years together before calling it quits. "Play It Again Sam," which he wrote, directed and starred in, played on Broadway, then moved on to Hollywood to become a movie. His co-star was Diane Keaton. Louise Lasser starred in two of Allen's films, Diane Keaton in five, and Mia Farrow in 12. In the fall of 1979 he met Mia Farrow, who had seven children. They slowly began a relationship early in 1980, wondrous at how different they were. He was then 43 and she, 34. They resolved their opposite tastes for 11 years by living in separate apartments that face each other across Central Park. Though they never lived together they had one biological child and adopted two. The relationship began falling apart in the end of the '80s. On 1 December 1991, he began an affair with Soon-Yi (about age 21), one of Farrow's adopted tribe. When Farrow found out, it became a highly public explosion. She accused him of molesting daughter Dylan on 4 August 1992, which was never proven. He sued for custody of their two adopted children and made history in the Manhattan Surrogate court on 17 December 1991 with a precedent that they were separate but equal adoptive parents of Moses and Dylan Farrow. However he lost his custody suit with Mia in mid-June 1993. On a chilly afternoon, 23 December 1997, Allen, 62, married Soon-Yi Previn, 27, at a municipal building in Venice, Italy. They have an adopted daughter, Bechet Dumaine. In September 2000 they adopted another daughter, Manzie Tio, reportedly born in Texas about six months ago. Both daughters received their names from legendary musicians. Woody Allen's father, Martin Konigsberg, a former waiter and jewelry engraver, died in New York on 8 January 2001 after reaching the age of 100 on 25 December 2000 -- after living on a diet of cigarettes, eggs, meat and ice cream, said his devoted son. Link to Wikipedia biography