Steve Allen
Wow, Gotham City had its own variety show, The Allen Stevens Show. The host was none other than superstar, musician, talkshow host, and comedian, Steve Allen.
Steve Allen is an astounding individual. He is a comic, a talkshow host, a musician and an actor. He started his career early in life, the son of a famous vaudeville comedy act. His list of credits to date is unbelievable, He has written 6500 songs, ( which by the way is a world record) published 49 books and has released over 40 jazz albums. Unreal !
At the time of the Batman series, he was already a superstar. Steve was the creator of "The Tonight Show" and was it's host from 1954 to 1957. He started out in 1949 in movies and TV and hasn't slowed down much since. In the Batman Series as Allen Stevens, Batman and Robin were on his show to vow they would return the voices of Chad and Jeremy stolen by Catwoman. The feline crashed the show and made her demands- after dropping a sneezing bomb, she was able to make her exit with her kittens.
He has remained active in TV and movies thru the years but it would take a whole website to describe his achievements. The multi-talented comedian, writer, composer, lyricist, actor, concert artist, lecturer (ad infinitum) is a tall (6'3"), 200-pound man,has been married for 39 years to the beautiful and versatile actress Jayne Meadows. They live in a comfortable hillside house overlooking the San Fernando Valley.To read more about him, here is his own website !
The Official Steve Allen Website
Steve is still very active at age 79 and continues to wow audiences wherever he performs.
Sad Notice From MSNBC on Steve's Passing
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 31 2000— Steve Allen, the droll comic who pioneered late-night television with the original “Tonight Show,” composed more than 4,000 songs and wrote 40 books, has died at age 78. He died Monday night of an apparent heart attack at the Encino home of his son, Bill Allen, relatives said Tuesday.
ALLEN ALSO STARRED as the King of Swing in the 1956 movie “The Benny
Goodman Story.” He appeared in Broadway shows, on soap operas, wrote
newspaper columns, commented on wrestling broadcasts, made 40 record albums,
wrote plays and a television series that featured guest appearances by actors
portraying figures such as Sigmund Freud, Clarence Darrow and Aristotle.
His skill as an ad libber became
apparent in his early career as a disc jockey in Phoenix. He once interrupted
the playing of records to announce: “Sports fans, I have the final score
for you on the big game between Harvard and William & Mary. It is:
Harvard 14, William 12, Mary 6.”
One of Allen’s most enduring
achievements came with the introduction of “The Tonight Show” in 1953.
The show began as “Tonight” on the New York NBC station WNBT, then moved
to the network on Sept. 27, 1954. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)
In a statement issued Tuesday, NBC
President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Wright said: “Everyone in the NBC
family mourns [his] passing ...We will always be grateful for his
contributions as the original host of ‘The Tonight Show’ ... Television
truly has lost one of its most distinguished pioneers.”
BREATH
OF FRESH AIR
Amid the formality of early TV,
“Tonight” was a breath of fresh air. The show began with Allen noodling
at the piano, playing some of his compositions and commenting wittily on
events of the day. He would then move to a desk, chat with guests, take part
in sketches and do zany man-in-the street interviews.“It was tremendous fun
to sit there night after night reading questions from the audience and trying
to think up funny answers to them; reading angry letters to the editor;
introducing the greats of comedy, jazz, Broadway and Hollywood; welcoming new
comedians like Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, Mort Sahl and Don Adams,”
he once said.
Allen’s popularity led NBC in 1956 to
schedule “The Steve Allen Show” on Sunday evenings opposite “The Ed
Sullivan Show” on CBS.
A variation of “Tonight,” the
primetime show was notable for its “Man in the Street Interview”
featuring new comics Louis Nye (“Hi-ho, Steverino”), Don Knotts, Tom
Poston, Pat Harrington and Bill Dana. The show lasted through 1961, although
the last year was on ABC.
Allen cut back his “Tonight’ duties
to three nights a week when the prime-time show started and then left
“Tonight” altogether. He was replaced for a season by Ernie Kovacs. NBC
tried a new format in 1957, “Tonight!America after Dark.” It failed, and
“Tonight” resumed with Jack Paar, followed by Johnny Carson in 1962.
Through the years Allen maintained a busy career, making appearances in
movies and TV series, often with his wife Jayne. Her sister was the late
Audrey Meadows, who portrayed the long-suffering Alice to Jackie Gleason’s
Ralph Kramden on “The Honeymooners.”
He wrote many songs, and several were
recorded by pop vocalists. His most popular song was “This May Be the Start
of Something Big.”
A self-styled advocate of “radical
middle-of-the-roadism,” Allen often spoke out on political matters such as
capital punishment, nuclear policy and freedom of expression. He once
considered running for Congress as a Democrat but decided against it.
Toward the end of his life, he spoke out
against the increase of sexual content on television. In a speech last year,
he said tabloid television talk shows such as the “Jenny Jones” show have
“taken television to the garbage dump.”
“There are moral failures in the
marketplace,” he said.
Allen was proudest of his “Meeting of
Minds” series which appeared on PBS from 1976 to 1979. He moderated a panel
of actors impersonating historic figures such as Galileo, Emily Dickinson,
Cleopatra (played by Jayne Meadows), Charles Darwin and Attila the Hun, who
explained their diverse philosophies.
When an interviewer asked Allen in 1985
how he managed to do so many creative things, he replied:
“I never asked myself that question.
It would be like asking how my hair grows. The mystery of creativity is just
that: — it is a mystery and particularly mysterious to me about myself.”
LIFE IN SHOW BUSINESS
Steve Allen came by his humor naturally.
Both his parents, Billy Allen and Belle Montrose, were vaudeville comedians.
Their son was born in New York City on Dec. 26, 1921, during a brief respite
from their travels. Steve was 18 months old when his father died, and his
mother continued touring the circuits as a single.
The boy grew up in other people’s
homes, mostly with his mother’s family in Chicago, the Donahues. He
remembered the place as “a rooming house with the smell of cabbage
cooking.”
Allen won a partial scholarship to study journalism at Drake University, but
severe asthma caused him to transfer to Arizona State Teachers College in
1942. After a few months he dropped out to work as a disc jockey and
entertainer at radio station KOY in Phoenix.
Drafted in 1943, he was soon released
because of asthma. He returned to KOY and married his college sweetheart,
Dorothy Goodman. They had three sons, Steve Jr., David and Brian, and
divorced in 1952.
Allen moved to Los Angeles and began offering his comedy and music on local
radio.
A midnight show on KNX brought Allen a
small but enthusiastic audience and attracted national attention in 1950 when
it was carried on the CBS network as a summer replacement for “Our Miss
Brooks.” The networks were converting to television, and he was invited to
New York for “The Steve Allen Show,” which appeared five evenings a week
on CBS.
In 1952, Allen was invited to a dinner
party at which he was seated next to the beautiful actress Jayne Meadows.
Uncharacteristically, he was speechless.
At the end of the evening, she turned to
him and said, “Mr. Allen, you’re either the rudest man I ever met or the
shyest.” His reddened face indicated the latter. They began dating and
married in 1954.
Their only child, Bill, said that on
Monday, his father was visiting his home. “He said he was a little tired
after dinner. He went to relax, peacefully, and never reawakened,” the
younger Allen said.
He added that his father had a “long,
full and extraordinary life.”
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