Allen, Woody (1935-…), is an American actor, motion-picture director, author, and comedian . Allen won two Academy Awards for directing and co-writing Annie Hall (1977). The film also won the Academy Award for best picture. He also won best original screenplay Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Midnight in Paris (2011). Allen directed both films.
Allen is skilled at depicting the American character in a satirical light. He often satirizes the anxieties and romantic difficulties of intellectual, urban people. In a number of his films, Allen portrays a witty but insecure, self-conscious, and rather desperate individual troubled by the lack of values in modern society and by his relationship with women. In addition, this character is often a Jewish outsider who yearns for acceptance in the exclusive worlds of Hollywood and the white Protestant community.
Allen was born in New York City on Dec. 1, 1935. His real name is Allen Stewart Konigsberg. He began his career writing jokes for magazines, newspapers, and television . During the early 1960’s, Allen was a popular nightclub comedian. He made his film debut as an actor in What’s New, Pussycat? (1965), which he wrote. Allen gradually gained complete artistic control over his work. He has turned out a steady stream of highly personal films, which he has written and directed, and which have been shot and edited according to his own creative goals.
Allen wrote, directed, and starred in such comic films as Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Manhattan (1979), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Deconstructing Harry (1997), Small Time Crooks (2000), The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), Hollywood Ending (2002), Anything Else (2003), Scoop (2006), and To Rome with Love (2012). He wrote, directed, and starred in the comedy-dramas Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Husbands and Wives (1992).
Allen also wrote and directed Interiors (1978),The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Radio Days and September (both 1987), Another Woman (1988), Alice (1990), Shadows and Fog (1992), Bullets over Broadway (1994), Celebrity (1998), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Melinda and Melinda and Match Point (both 2005), Cassandra’s Dream (2007), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Whatever Works (2009), You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), Blue Jasmine (2013), Magic in the Moonlight (2014), Irrational Man (2015), and Café Society (2016). Allen acted in, but did not write or direct, Fading Gigolo (2013). He wrote, directed, and acted in the television miniseries Crisis in Six Scenes (2016).
Allen wrote three full-length comic plays, Don’t Drink the Water (1966), Play It Again, Sam (1969), and The Floating Light Bulb (1981). He has also written humorous essays and stories. Many of them were published in the collections Getting Even (1971), Without Feathers (1975), Side Effects (1980), and Mere Anarchy (2007). In addition, Allen wrote the autobiography Apropos of Nothing (2020).
Allen had a romantic relationship with the American actress Mia Farrow from about 1980 to the early 1990’s. He attracted publicity in the early 1990’s when Farrow discovered that Allen was involved in a sexual relationship with her adopted teenaged daughter Soon-Yi Previn. Allen married Previn in 1997.
