Steve Allen 1921 - 2000

Steve Allen did a lot of breakthrough TV. I remember David Letterman used to give him a lot of credit for the style and format of his old Late Night show.

But to me, Allen, was just this old timer, red faced, who seemed to think he was funnier than he really was. He'd sit down at the piano and bang out some silly tune. And then he'd start talking about how times have changed (for the worse, of course -- just like all old people say), too much sex and violence on TV. Bla, bla. Sometimes I saw him talking about God and Our Savior and stuff. He just seemed really out-of-touch.

I've seen some of his old stuff from the fifties, and a lot of it is clever and innovative. But. Anyway, I've put together all the photos on this page. To show who I saw him as. This old man, smiling, maybe a little drunk, a toupee. Big dumb glasses. I love Ernie Kovacs. But Steve Allen just leaves me a little bored.

New News Report!

Death of comedian Steve Allen linked to car accident
Reuters
Jan 5 2001 6:26PM

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The death of comedian and television pioneer Steve Allen last October was linked to injuries he had suffered hours earlier in a minor traffic accident, according to a Los Angeles coroner's report released Friday.

Allen died Oct. 30 at age 78 of an apparent heart attack while napping at the home of his youngest son in a Los Angeles suburb after carving pumpkins with his grandchildren and taping a radio tribute to an old friend, satirist Paul Krassner.

"There was leakage of blood into the sac surrounding the heart due to a ruptured blood vessel," Los Angeles Coroner's spokesman Scott Carrier said.

"There was a hole in the wall of the heart allowing the blood to leak out. This was a result of Mr. Allen's being injured in a minor traffic accident shortly before his death which bruised the left side of his chest. He already had a heart condition," Carrier said.

Once called television's "Man for All Seasons," Allen was celebrated for his quick wit, horn-rimmed glasses and song-writing skills that saw him compose 8,500 tunes. He also wrote 40 books, plus poetry, newspaper columns, songs and a Broadway review.

In 1953 he made television history by becoming the first host of the Tonight Show, which began on NBC's local New York affiliate WNBC-TV, and he was credited with creating the television talk show.

He was married to actress Jayne Meadows for 48 years.

On the day of his death Allen was planning the promotion of his 53rd book and working on the manuscript for a 54th: "Vulgarians at the Gate," about what he saw as an increase in violence and vulgarity in the media.

Old News Report

By Michele Greppi

Wednesday November 01 01:37 AM EST

NEW YORK (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Steve Allen, the last of the Renaissance men and destined to be remembered as "Steverino," one of Hollywood's good guys, died Monday night of an apparent heart attack. He was 78.

A statement from Warren Cowan Associates said Allen was at the Encino home of his youngest son, Bill, where he'd been visiting with four of his 11 grandchildren, and was resting when he lost consciousness and died.

It was an abrupt end to a life that encompassed several simultaneous careers, any one of which could have kept most other artists hopping. But Allen was never too busy to give a boost to a long list of others, including the Smothers Brothers, Bill Dana, Jim Nabors, Tim Conway, Don Knotts and Ruth Buzzi, whose talent he was quick to spot, showcase and enjoy.

Allen was an actor, musician, comedian, crusader and the author of more than 8,500 songs, more than 50 books -- and memos, memos, memos.

"I think he wrote more memos than any other human being," recalled legendary comedy manager George Shapiro, who got to know Allen while working as a young agent at William Morris Agency, which had packaged "The Steve Allen Show" for NBC in the mid-'50s.

"His mind was so prolific, it never stopped," Shapiro said.

Allen didn't want to miss or forget anything, so he always carried a pocket tape recorder into which he'd commit his ideas, which someone else would turn into memos.

"I would get 25-30 memos a day," Shapiro said.

The news of Allen's death had many of the country's greatest clowns shedding tears because so many of them felt they owed him a great debt.

It was Allen whose offer to foot the recording bill turned what had been a decade-long party bit between Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks into the classic album that gave the world "The 2,000-Year-Old Man."

"We always thanked him for being the catalyst," Reiner said. "Luckily, he left so many marks in so many places and for so long that I think his name will always be synonymous with comedy."

"Steve made you look good. You really stood out," said Jonathan Winters, who first worked with Allen in the 1950s in New York, when Allen's troupe of performers and pals included Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, Steve and Eydie Gorme, Louie Nye, Pat Harrington and Tom Poston.

In 1953, "Tonight" debuted as a local show in New York. On Sept. 27, 1954, it graduated to the network as "The Steve Allen Show," with the theme song Allen wrote, and late-night was never the same.

Among his TV routines: parodying juvenile rock 'n' roll lyrics by reading them as if they were sublime poetry, and "The Question Man," in which someone would give him an answer and he would guess the question -- forerunner to Johnny Carson's "Karnac."

Allen cut back his "Tonight' duties to three nights a week when the prime-time show started. He left even that in 1956. He was replaced for a season by Ernie Kovacs, then NBC tried a new format in 1957, "Tonight! America after Dark." It failed, and "Tonight" resumed with Jack Paar, followed by Carson in 1962.

But it was Allen's mix of comedy, conversation and music that paved the way for both the talk-comedy late-night show and "Saturday Night Live."

"Steve Allen was an enormous influence on television," CBS' "Late Show" host David Letterman said in a statement. "His early work is really the foundation for what late-night shows have become."

NBC's Conan O'Brien reminded "Late Night" viewers Tuesday night that the wall of his set has always held photos of "four great broadcasters": Allen, Letterman, Johnny Carson and Jack Paar. "We thought we should think about his tonight," O'Brien said.

Allen was in the thoughts of many Tuesday.

Milton Berle remembered his days as a teenager in vaudeville, when he shared a bill with the toddler Allen's mother, Belle Montrose, who would ask Berle to keep an eye on Allen in his stroller.

Decades later, Berle and Allen were still sharing a running gag about how Allen owed Berle $1.45 for having "wee-ed all over my clothes."

That's about as rough as Allen's language got, even at stag nights with the Friars Club, said Berle, who said Allen was never a wet blanket.

Indeed, a younger generation that may only know Allen as the honorary chairman of the Parents Television Council -- Allen's name and photo was on a full-page ad in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times in which he urged a boycott of sponsors of "filth, vulgarity, sex and violence" on TV -- might be surprised to hear that he'd also had one of the modern era's first shock comics, Lenny Bruce, on his TV show at a point when Bruce desperately needed friends.

"The fact that he was a very funny man was all Steve needed to know -- and that he would keep it clean on TV," said Poston, who described Allen as "the most gifted ad-libber of televisable humor and fun and laughter." "The list is endless of the people that he's supported by having them on his show, by supporting them and by loving them."

Allen was born into a showbiz family in New York in 1921. His mother and father, Billy Allen, were vaudeville comics. His mother continued to tour after Allen's father died when the child was only 18 months old.

Allen dropped out of Arizona State Teacher's College in 1942 to be a disc jockey at KOY radio in Phoenix.

By the time he transferred his act to Los Angeles radio station KNX, he had served a short stint in the military and had three sons, Steve Jr., David and Brian by Dorothy Goodman, from who he was divorced in 1952.

That was the year he'd meet Jayne Meadows, the actress to whom he'd be married for more than 46 years, producing their fourth son. The couple had 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

"He was the most talented man I've ever known and the one true love of my life," Meadows said.

Whatever Allen did, he put his own stamp on.

Producer George Schlatter, whose "Laugh-In" owed a lot to Allen, arrived in Los Angeles about the time Allen was announcing wrestling -- and making up impossible names for wrestling moves -- on TV there.

"I would sit there hysterical over this man announcing wrestling very straight but making up holds," Schlatter said.

Allen's work in Los Angeles earned him a ticket back to New York in 1950 for the first of his TV shows. Although he left "Tonight" after less than three years, he would continue to be a fixture on TV during the next two decades. After appearing on every network, he tried syndication in 1976.

Allen's talent and restless intellect earned him Peabody and Emmy awards for the 1970s PBS series "Meeting of Minds." He starred in the 1955 film "The Benny Goodman Story."

A better than serviceable jazz pianist, Allen periodically led a big band in Los Angeles starring Hollywood studio stalwarts, just as his original "Tonight " band had featured top New York jazzmen. It played from a book of top-flight arrangements at clubs and benefits and often featured a vocal by the maestro on one of his own lesser-known pop tunes such as "Matzoh Ball Soup."

And he never stopped writing. On Tuesday, he was planning the promotion of his 53rd book, "Steve Allen's Private Joke File," and polishing off the manuscript for his 54th, "Vulgarians at the Gate."

Allen's monologue on "The Tonight Show" was anchored at the piano, but he kept things moving with conversation and comedy bits that took him out on the street.

"Steve Allen had a tremendous influence on me," "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno said. "Some of my earliest memories of television were about staying up late and watching him.

"He played many characters -- straight man and comic -- and he did each role perfectly. But the role he played best was Steve Allen."

"He will be missed," longtime pal Sid Caesar said in a statement.