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“He had extreme intellegence… maybe that's why he could be that little kid,” said Dick Smothers, straight man of the famous comedy duo the Smothers Brothers. “Like when you see the old guy on the moutain top – the one who knows the truth of life, the meaning of life… All he does is sit, tell stupid jokes and gigle at life … and that's the truth. Steve had a handle on that.”
“He adored talent,” added Dick Smothers. He loved surrounding himself with comedic talent. In fact one could say Allen had an amazing talent for spotting talent. So many of the young comedians he brought to national attention on his television shows in the 50s and 60s would become the major comedy talent of this new media in the years to follow. People like… Don Adams, Shelly Berman, Lenny Bruce, Jackie Mason, Mike Nichols & Elaine May, Mort Sahl, Jackie Vernon, Fred Willard, Jonathan Winters… all appeared on Allen's shows very early in their careers. And the great comedians that were regulars on Allen's shows at one time or another, comedians like… Dayton Allen, Tim Conway, Bill Dana, Gabe Dell, Pat Harrington Jr., Don Knotts, Jayne Meadows, Jim Nabors, Louis Nye, Tom Poston, the Smothers Brothers… those comics have become some of the most memorable names in the history of television comedy.
Jackie Mason once said, “This man gave me an opportunity to be in show business when I never thought I'd be. When everybody said, ‘he's too Jewish…’ I'm talking about the Jews. When everybody said, ‘he's too short…’ I'm talking about even short people. When everybody said, ‘he'll never amount to anything…’ people who weren't even working were saying this. … When no Jew in the world would hire me this tall gentile with glasses decided that I'm the one for his show and gave me a career that has gone on for the rest of my life.”
What Other Comedians
“Steve left big footprints. He was a combination of so many things. He was unique… the way he worked… the way he interacted with talent… the fact that he wrote 50 million songs… his books… his poetry. He carried a lot of dignity… dignity and sillyness at the same time. You usually don't find the two in the same person … No, you never do.”
Morey Amsterdam said –
“Steve Allen (was) one of the most creative, original comedic minds of our time.”
“ Steve (was) one of the people who really inspired me to become a comedian.”
“Steve Allen always makes me laugh.”
“He was a most creative innovator and brilliant entertainer.”
“He was one of a kind. My very first job on a TV show was as a page at NBC in New York for Steve Allen, and I never got over that feeling of awe.”
“Steve Allen's passing certainly impoverishes our
“ He was the most talented man I've ever known and the one true love of my life.”
True talent, great talent for comedy and mirth making, is a gift believed Steve Allen. And because of Allen's childhood in and around vaudeville – and the training he received during those early years – Steve Allen could “tell in about 30 seconds if somebody's got that mysterious gift.”
The only son of the vaudeville comedy duo of Montrose and Allen, Steve Allen was literally born into comedy. Allen credited his mother, Belle Montrose, for his funny bone. Milton Berle, who played the vaudville circuit along with Steve's mother back in Milton's youth, would probably agree, for he saw Belle's work first hand and called Steve's mom “the funniest woman in vaudeville.”
Steve Allen said, in an interview I had with him about a year before his death, that the first four or five years of his life … up to school age… were spent mostly in theaters. “If my mother and father had run a garage I would know a lot about cars,” related Allen. “But I spent so much time seeing acts, all kinds of acts, yes… but, a lot of comedy acts… I spent so much time seeing comedy acts that I got a free education right from the start.”
He took that education first to radio… A local radio station in Arizona – KOY, near where he was attending college, gave him the chance to do some part time work announcing, writing, playing the piano and acting. From there Allen would move on to work in a couple of local radio stations in the L.A. broadcasting area and eventually to a coast to coast scripted radio comedy program, known as Smile Time, along with fellow announcer Wendell Noble from his KOY days.
But it was the next job in his radio career that would prove to be the testing ground for honing and perfecting what Allen would bring to television. Behind a late night radio microphone at station KNX in California in the mid-40s Steve Allen created much of what would later become known to television audiences as The Tonight Show.
His KNX radio show was originally supposed to be a half-hour music-talk show but Allen slowly cut back on the music and increased the talk. The listening audience liked the changes and steadily grew in size. With his shows growing success came the offer to do an hour instead of a half. The only problem … it didn't come with a pay raise. Why do twice the work without any more money? So Steve Allen set about to think of some ways to lighten the extra heavy work load a bit. Soon Allen began inviting Hollywood celebrities to come and plug their latest movies or albums to cut down on the extra writing time involved in doing an hour long show. And again his listening audience grew until less than one year later it had become the most popular nighttime show in the history of Los Angeles radio. The show, which was taped in front of a live studio audience, was growing in popularity so much so that in spite of the late hours Allen was performing to a standing-room-only audience nightly. Then one night guest Doris Day didn't show up. Needing to fill some 25 minutes that would become dead air if he didn't act quickly Steve Allen picked up the large heavy floor microphone and carried it into the studio audience to talk and ad-lib with them for the first time – and as they say… the rest is history.
The buzz about Allen's late night radio show's success attracted CBS television's attention and by 1950 New York television was calling on his talents. But CBS didn't ask him to do for TV what he was doing on the radio, they gave him other projects to work on. Luckily for Allen, and insomniacs all across America, NBC would come calling in 1953 with an offer to create a show of his own for the late night time slot.
When Steve Allen opened the first Tonight Show to be broadcast nationally over NBC's airwaves he poked fun at his own show saying…
This is ‘TONIGHT’ … this program is going to go on forever… boy you think you're tired now wait till you see one o'clock roll around… And we especially selected this theater for this very late show because this theater sleeps about 800 people.
“This program is going to go on forever…” Although, at the time, these words were intended as a slightly self deprecating joke about the length of the show and the late hours it was broadcast … the statement would prove to be prophetic. For the show that Allen created in the early 50s – whose format was continued by Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno – is still going strong today and remains the highest rated series on late night television. The Tonight Show is the longest running entertainment series in the history of television. And much of it's format, as well as the formats of other late night talk shows these days, began during Steve Allen's reign over television's midnight broadcasting hour. “Turn on Leno or Letterman and you'll see what Steve created,” says Steve Lawrence, who along with his wife Eydie Gorme, were regulars on the Tonight Show during the days when Steve Allen hosted. David Letterman is quick to credit the Steve Allen Comedy Hour Shows as the single biggest inspiration for his own show today. Allen has been referred to as ‘the most imitated man on television.’ He was the first comedian to do funny and totally ad-libbed interviews with studio audiences or everday people on the street; his cameramen took their cameras onto the streets of Hollywood and Vine to candidly film whatever occurred using the footage as fodder for funny play-by-play type descriptions by Allen; he originated the Question Man – in which the answer is given before the question; he originated the idea of taking close-up pictures of people in his audience and building a comedy routine upon them; and he was the first comic to regularly do crazy and sometimes dangerous physical stunts on his shows.
Allen said of early television, “there was great freedom, especially if you were creative. You could exercise your gifts very freely.” In a time when taking risks meant something other than merely being risque, television comedy in the 50s was original and experimental. And comedians of the day were given a chance to take a brand new medium and discover what worked and what didn't. Television was a great white canvas just waiting for the talent of the day to come along and take their comedic brush strokes across it – hoping for the occasional masterpiece. Steve Allen, along with his talented cast of comedy regulars, contributed a great deal to the golden mosaic of early classic television comedy.
As Steve Allen looked back on 50s television in his 1960 autobiography Mark It And Strike It he wrote… “Mark It And Strike It” is a direction to stagehands used in television. It is a command to the crew to mark the position of the scenery and then remove it. I have used the expression as a title because it suggests something of the impermanence of the medium. The big names of television of 1950 or even 1955 are almost all gone now. One of the reasons I have never permitted television to become my whole life is that it is a very here-today-gone-tomorrow business. And yet, in this very here-today-gone-tomorrow business of television Steve Allen's influence somehow still goes on and on after all these years. For more information on the life and career of Steve Allen – his comedy and other talents and interests – visit www.SteveAllen.com For other sites of interest try visiting… www.JayneMeadows.com – the web site of Steve Allen's wife and showbusiness partner for over 40 years …and… www.AudreyMeadows.com – the web site of Allen's sister-in-law, ‘Alice Kramden’ of TV's ‘The Honeymooners’
Photos Courtesy Meadowlane Enterprises & www.SteveAllen.com
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