Allen Stewart Konigsberg was born in 1935 in New York. He comes
from a very solid jewish family from Brooklyn. In 1952 Woody Allen
was born. Allen changed his name because he has decided to become
a comedian. He thought that Konigsberg is to serious name as for
a comedian. He has been working on his image in small Greenwich
Village clubs. He started his career very early. He hated school
and prefered to stay at home, where he could play jazz or make
up some new jokes for newspapers. They throw him out of New York
University after first year. He started to write jokes for David
Alber for 20$ a week. He wasn't even 20 years old, when he became
to write jokes for tv satirical programmes. That was in 1955-58.
He also was nominated for Emmy at that time.
From
1960 he started at his own live show. His jokes were very funny.
In 1965 he wrote the script for Clive Donner's movie "What's
New, Pussycat?", where he played the leading role. Woody
also wrote a script for "What's up, Tiger Lily".
In 1969 he created his first play "Play It Again, Sam".
He also directed his first movie "Take the money and run".
Allen wrote a script and played a leading role there. It was a
comedy, in which he presented his autoirony and inteligent humour.
However Woody started to develop his characteristic style from 1969,
and since that time he realized mainly comedies, such as "Bananas"
(1971) or "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex".
Together with Diane Keaton Allen started his next movies, such as
"Sleeper" (1973), "Love and Death" (1975). Keaton
also played in "Annie Hall" (1977).
Woody played intellectual comedian Alvy Singer, who has some problems
whith his private life. After that Allen played in "Manhattan"
(1978), a tribute to New York and in "Stardust Memories"
(1980).
In
1980's Woody began his relationship wiht Mia Farrow, an actress.
Farrow played in all his next movies untill their parting. And so
she played in "Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" (1982), and
"Zelig" (1983). She also played in "Purple Rose of
Cairo" (1984) and "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1985).
"Husbands and Wives" was their last movie. After that
Woody ones again directed a comedy titled "Manhattan Murder
Mistery", where his friends-actors Alan Alda and Diane Keaton
tried to solve some mistery. "Bullets Over Broadway" presented
fabulous role of Dine Wiest. Year 1995 brought us "Mighty Aphrodite"
and 1996 first ever musical comedy "Everyone Says I love you".
After that Woody directed also "Deconstructing Harry"
(1997), "Celebrity" (1998) and "Sweet and Lowdown"
(1999).
His
latest movies are:ˇ "Small Time Crooks" (2000)
ˇ "Curse of the Jade Scorpion" (2001)
ˇ "Hollywood Ending" (2002)
ˇ "Anything Else" (2003)
ˇ "Melinda and Melinda" (2004)
Allen once again has proved that he is one of the most hardworking
and one of the most inventive directors.
"The two biggest myths about me are that I'm an intellectual,
because I wear these glasses, and that I'm an artist because my
films lose money. Those two myths have been prevalent for many years."
- Woody Allen, 2002
