Woody Allen American Director Known for Annie Hall

Woody Allen, born Allan Stewart Konigsberg on 30 November 1935 in the Bronx, New York City, is an American filmmaker, actor, writer and comedian. His work spans joke writing, stand-up, theater, prose and more than five decades of feature films.

Early life

Allen was born at Mount Eden Hospital in the Bronx. His mother, Nettie, worked as a bookkeeper at her family's delicatessen, and his father, Martin Konigsberg, was a jewelry engraver and waiter. He and his younger sister, the producer Letty Aronson, grew up in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. He graduated from Midwood High School in 1953 and began calling himself Woody while a student there.

He enrolled at New York University to study communication and film in 1953 but left after failing a film production course, and he spent a single semester at City College of New York in 1954. Later he taught at The New School and studied with the writing teacher Lajos Egri. He had started writing short jokes at fifteen and sold them to Broadway writers, which led to a place in the NBC Writer's Development Program in 1955.

Career

Allen first worked as a television and comedy writer, contributing to programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show and to specials for Sid Caesar, alongside writers including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon. He also wrote humor pieces and short stories, collected in books such as Getting Even (1971), Without Feathers (1975) and Side Effects (1980).

From 1960 he performed stand-up in Greenwich Village clubs, making his professional stage debut at the Blue Angel in Manhattan in October 1960. He became a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and recorded three albums, the first of them the self-titled Woody Allen (1964), which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. On Broadway he wrote Don't Drink the Water (1966) and Play It Again, Sam (1969), the second of which starred him opposite Diane Keaton.

His first produced screenplay was What's New Pussycat? (1965), and he made his directing debut with What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966). He then wrote, directed and starred in a run of comedies: Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975). Annie Hall (1977), in which he and Keaton starred, won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He followed it with Interiors (1978) and Manhattan (1979), and later films set largely in New York included Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). From 1980 to 1992 he had a professional partnership with Mia Farrow, and they worked together on thirteen films, among them A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Zelig (1983) and Broadway Danny Rose (1984).

Allen has made a film almost every year since the 1970s. Later titles include Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Deconstructing Harry (1997), Match Point (2005), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Midnight in Paris (2011) and Blue Jasmine (2013). In 2014 he adapted Bullets Over Broadway as a Broadway musical. He created the Amazon Prime Video series Crisis in Six Scenes (2016), published the memoir Apropos of Nothing in 2020, and released the novel What's With Baum? in 2025. His latest listed screen credit is Coup de chance (2023).

Recognition

Allen has won four Academy Awards: Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Annie Hall, and Best Original Screenplay for Hannah and Her Sisters and for Midnight in Paris. He holds the record for the most nominations (16) and wins (3) in the Original Screenplay category. His BAFTA Awards include Best Direction for Annie Hall and for Hannah and Her Sisters, Best Original Screenplay for several films, and Best Film for The Purple Rose of Cairo, which also earned him a Golden Globe for its screenplay. Hannah and Her Sisters won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. He received an Honorary Golden Lion in 1995, the BAFTA Fellowship in 1997, an Honorary Palme d'Or in 2002 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2014. Two of his films have been added to the National Film Registry.

Personal life

Allen's first marriage, to Harlene Susan Rosen, ran from 1956 to 1959, and his second, to the actress Louise Lasser, from 1966 to 1970. He married Soon-Yi Previn in 1997, and the couple adopted two children.