Steve Allen
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Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen (December 26, 1921 – October 30, 2000) was a musician, comedian and writer, who was instrumental in innovating the concept of the television talk show. Allen is called The Father of TV Talk Shows."
After years in radio, Allen became the original host of The Tonight Show, from its first New York broadcast in 1953, up until 1957, when he was replaced by Jack Paar. It was as host of the Tonight Show that Allen pioneered the "man on the street" and audience-participation comedy bits that have become commonplace in late-night TV.
Allen went on to host a slew of television programs up until the 1980s, including the game show I've Got a Secret and The New Steve Allen Show in 1961. He was a regular on the extremely popular panel game show What's My Line? from 1953 to 1954 and returning as a guest panelist until the series' end in 1967.
Allen was also a composer who supposedly wrote over 7000 songs. In one famous stunt, Allen wrote 400 simple tunes in a single day. Allen's best known songs are "This Could Be The Start of Something Big" and "The Gravy Waltz", which won a Grammy Award in 1963 for best jazz composition. Allen was also an actor, appearing in such films as 1955's The Benny Goodman Story.
Allen was also the producer of the award-winning PBS series Meeting of Minds, a "talk show" with notable historical figures, with Steve Allen serving as host. This series pitted Socrates, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Paine, Sir Thomas More, Attila the Hun, Karl Marx, Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, and other historical figures in dialogue and argument. A proposed revival of this show was rejected as "too cerebral".
He was also an accomplished comedy writer, and author of over 50 books, including Dumbth, a commentary on the American educational system, and Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality.
Allen was a secular humanist and Humanist Laureate for the Academy of Humanism, a member of CSICOP and the Council for Secular Humanism. Allen was a supporter of world government and served on the World Federalist Association Board of Advisers [1] (http://www.amherstvigil.org/92798.html). In spite of his liberal position on free speech, his later concerns about the smuttiness he observed on television caused him to make proposals restricting the content of programs.
Allen was married to Jayne Meadows from 1954 until his death in 2000. He died of heart failure and is interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Steve Allen has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: a TV star at 1720 Vine St. and a radio star at 1537 Vine St.
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Shows
- Songs for Sale (1950- 1952)
- The Steve Allen Show (1950)
- The Tonight Show (1954 - 1956, NBC)
- The Steve Allen Show
- Talent Patrol (1953 - 1955)
- What's My Line (1953 - 1954)
- I've Got a Secret (1964 -1967)
- Meeting of Minds (1977 - 1981, PBS)
- Steve Allen Comedy Hour (1980 - 1981)
- The Start of Something Big (1985 - 1986)
Songs include:
- "This Could Be the Start of Something Big"
- "The Gravy Waltz"
Books
- Bop Fables (1955)
- Fourteen for Tonight (1955)
- Short story collection
- The Funny Men (1956)
- Wry on the Rocks (1956)
- Poetry
- The Girls on the Tenth Floor and Other Stories (1958)
- 1970 printing: ISBN 0836936086
- The Question Man... (1959)
- Mark It and Strike It: An Autobiography (1960)
- Not All of Your Laughter, Not All of Your Tears (1962)
- Dialogues in Americanism (1964)
- Letter to a Conservative (1965)
- The Ground is Our Table (1966)
- Bigger Than A Breadbox (1967)
- The Flash of Swallows (1969)
- The Wake (1972)
- Princess Snip-Snip and the Puppy-Kittens (1973)
- Curses! or...How Never to Be Foiled Again (1973)
- What To Say When It Rains (1974)
- Schmock-Schmock! (1975)
- Meeting of Minds (1978)
- ISBN 0517533839
- 1989 printing: ISBN 0879755504
- Chopped-Up Chinese (1978)
- Ripoff: A Look at Corruption in America (1979)
- Meeting of Minds, Second Series (1979)
- ISBN 0517538946
- 1989 printing: ISBN 0879755652
- Explaining China (1980)
- Funny People (1981)
- Beloved Son: A Story of the Jesus Cults (1982)
- More Funny People (1982)
- How to Make a Speech (1986)
- How to Be Funny: Discovering the Comic You (1987)
- With Jane Wollman
- ISBN 0070011990
- 1992 printing: ISBN 0879757922
- 1998 revised edition: ISBN 1573922064
- The Passionate Nonsmoker's Bill of Rights: The First Guide to Enacting Nonsmoking Legislation (1989)
- "Dumbth": And 81 Ways to Make Americans Smarter (1989)
- ISBN 0879755393
- 1998 revised edition: ISBN 1573922374
- Meeting of Minds, Vol. III (1989)
- Meeting of Minds, Vol. IV (1989)
- The Public Hating: A Collection of Short Stories (1990)
- Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion & Morality (1990)
- Hi-Ho, Steverino: The Story of My Adventures in the Wonderful Wacky World of Television (1992)
- ISBN 0942637550
- large-print edition: ISBN 1560545216
- More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion & Morality (1993)
- Make 'em Laugh (1993)
- Reflections (1994)
- The Man Who Turned Back the Clock, and Other Short Stories (1995)
- The Bug and the Slug in the Rug (1995)
- But Seriously...: Steve Allen Speaks His Mind (1996)
- Steve Allen's Songs: 100 Lyrics with Commentary (1999)
- Steve Allen's Private Joke File (2000)
- Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio--Raising the Standards of Popular Culture (2001)
Allen's series of mystery novels "starring" himself and wife Jayne Meadows was actually ghostwritten by Walter J. Sheldon, and later Robert Westbrook)
- Murder in Manhattan (1990)
- Murder in Vegas (1991)
- The Murder Game (1993)
- Murder on the Atlantic (1995)
- Murder on the Glitter Box (1989)
- The Talk Show Murders (1982)
- Wake Up to Murder (1996)
- Die Laughing (1998)
- Murder in Hawaii (1999)
Quote
"How many humanists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Ten: one to screw in the lightbulb and nine to fight for the right to do so!"
External links
- The Official Website of Steve Allen (http://www.steveallen.com/)
- Steve Allen tribute (Skeptical Inquirer January 2001) (http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-01/steve-allen.html)
| Preceded by: – | Host of The Tonight Show 1954 – 1956 | Succeeded by: Steve Allen & Ernie Kovacs |
| Preceded by: Steve Allen | Host of The Tonight Show (with Ernie Kovacs) 1956 – 1957 | Succeeded by: Jack Paar |