About book The Unruly Life Of Woody Allen: A Biography (2000)
Bright as he was, or perhaps because he was so intelligent, Woody (born Allan Konigsberg) was a difficult child at school, often playing hooky, his mother making numerous trips to school to explain his behavior. He was a reluctant reader, although he would devour as many as fifty comic books per day. He was addicted to movies, plunking down 11 cents for a double feature in the air-conditioned comfort of the neighborhood theater, a rather forbidding place with rats scurrying around the floor.Despite his self-depiction in his movies, Allen was not bashful nor repressed as a child, and he was considered a bad influence by the parents of most of his friends. He would practice magic tricks for hours each day, becoming quite proficient. His mother could be quite a nag, but Woody would often dish it right back. Once, when she had a patch over one eye because of a cataract and she was haranguing him about something, he shot back, "Shut up Mom, or I'll blind your other eye."His first marriage, to Harlene, was not a success. Married in their teens, they had to move back in with her parents after the Colgate Show folded. He had been writing for them. Neil Simon's brother, Danny, took an interest in him and taught him that writing jokes was not enough; he needed to learn how to write whole sketches. It was about this time that he began therapy, insisting he was constantly depressed. He used to joke that his wife's cooking tasted like coffee, everything, even the eggs. The marriage was strained, but his career was beginning to take off, and he wrote for Sid Caesar's Show of Shows. He was soon working around the clock. His jokes about their marriage were borne silently by "Mrs. Woody" as she was rather derisively called. He remarked she looked like Olive Oil in the Popeye comics. She was studying philosophy and German, however, and she encouraged him to broaden his reading. They realized the marriage was a mistake and his belittling of his wife did not help. (For example he made comments that he almost choked to death on a bone in her chocolate pudding and he gave her an electric chair disguised as a hair dryer for her birthday; she was so bumble-brained that after burning herself it took her two minutes to think of the word "ouch;" or his wife was raped, but knowing her it was not considered a moving violation.) They were divorced after six years, just before Woody made it big.Soon he became enamored with Louise Lasser, a talented actress and singer. Her mother was a depressive and never forgave Louise for preventing her suicide, something she was to eventually succeed at. More grist for Woody's therapy mill.Allen's comedy was evolving into the self-deprecating analysis of Allen Konigsberg ("My parents rented out my room after I was kidnapped," and "My mother nursed me through falsies.") By 1969, he had gotten over his stage fright and become the hottest comic in the U.S.Meade, author of a very good biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, goes into considerable detail concerning the accusations and counter-charges related to Woody's affair and subsequent marriage to Sooni, Mia Farrow's adopted daughter. Bizarre doesn't even begin to describe the hate that resulted from this ill-advised liaison. Meade also describes Allen's movies, although most after the Sooni debacle and media frenzy hardly seem worth watching. It must be hard to write a biography of a living person and we'll just have to watch and see what happens in future years. Stay tuned.
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