The Unruly Life of Woody Allen by Marion Meade
Authors: Marion Meade
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Performing Arts, Individual Director
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High, word of his adventures quickly spread. On February 27, 1953, there was an article about him in the Midwood Argus praising the "carrot-topped senior" who has made "quite a name for himself as a gag-writer." Asked for the secret of his success, Woody said, "I just sit down at the typewriter and think funny." By February, he had two dozen clippings. "When Bryna Goldstein first showed me Earl Wilson's column," recalled Alan Lapidus, "and said that Woody Allen was Allan, I was shocked. Nobody had given a second thought to this little schlemiel." Lapidus, who dreamed of being a writer but wound up an architect like his father, would conclude that "Allan was smarter than all of us. We were focused on being wonderful, but the best and the brightest of us never amounted to anything. It was Allan who was looking at the outside world, knew what he wanted, and did it."
Toward the end of his senior year, his uncompensated contributions to Earl Wilson suddenly paid dividends with a part-time job at a Madison Avenue public relations agency representing celebrities such as Arthur Murray, Guy Lombardo, and Sammy Kaye. To attract attention to their clients, David O. Alber Associates planted newspaper items that made them sound witty, as if funny lines automatically popped out of their mouths. In fact, when Woody in his saddle shoes finally met Dave Alber, he already had a reputation. Recalled then publicist Eddie Jaffe, "There were dozens of people submitting gags but Woody was one of the best." Alber offered him twentyfive dollars a week for twenty hours of work, more money than he could earn delivering for Padow's Pharmacy or pinning at the bowling alleys. He was ecstatic. Until he became acquainted with Wilson and Alber, he had never known adult praise, but with his new parent surrogates, "my life began being special." With classes on the early shift, he was dismissed at one. "I would get on the subway," he said, "the train quite crowded, and straphanging, I'd take out a pencil," and by the time he got off he'd have whipped up forty or fifty jokes. It was "no big deal."
When he graduated from Midwood High in 1953, the Epilog yearbook carried a blank space alongside his photograph. Of the 720 students in the Class of '53, he was the only one who had not participated in a single extracurricular activity. If there had been a student voted least likely to succeed, he was it.
In September Woody's friends went to college: Jack and Elliott to City College of New York; Jerry to Dickinson; and Woody was accepted at New York University. Determined that her son make something of himself, Nettie planned for him a career in pharmacy, completely disregarding his aversion to school, which he would always think of as "a terrible, terrible nasty experience." She also dismissed the fact that he had acquired a manager, Harvey Meltzer, the older brother of a classmate, with whom he signed a five-year contract that gave Harvey a 25 percent commission. So far no work had materialized, and in any case, Nettie never considered show business a sensible job. But what made her imagine Woody would be happy as a pharmacist is hard to fathom.
As a compromise, he enrolled at New York University as a film major, not because of any desire to make films but because it was an easy course. Hoping to get by with a minimum of effort, he took what the school called a limited program—three courses, including Spanish, English, and Motion Picture Production. However, riding the subway to school was too great a temptation for a consummate truant. As the train approached West Fourth Street in the Village, the stop for N.Y.U., a voice kept telling him, "Don't get off here. Keep going." In Times Square he spent the morning skylarking at the Automat, with coffee and the morning papers, browsing in the Circle Magic Shop, then slipping into the Paramount for an early feature. In the afternoons, he trekked across town to the Alber office, where his salary had been increased to
Toward the end of his senior year, his uncompensated contributions to Earl Wilson suddenly paid dividends with a part-time job at a Madison Avenue public relations agency representing celebrities such as Arthur Murray, Guy Lombardo, and Sammy Kaye. To attract attention to their clients, David O. Alber Associates planted newspaper items that made them sound witty, as if funny lines automatically popped out of their mouths. In fact, when Woody in his saddle shoes finally met Dave Alber, he already had a reputation. Recalled then publicist Eddie Jaffe, "There were dozens of people submitting gags but Woody was one of the best." Alber offered him twentyfive dollars a week for twenty hours of work, more money than he could earn delivering for Padow's Pharmacy or pinning at the bowling alleys. He was ecstatic. Until he became acquainted with Wilson and Alber, he had never known adult praise, but with his new parent surrogates, "my life began being special." With classes on the early shift, he was dismissed at one. "I would get on the subway," he said, "the train quite crowded, and straphanging, I'd take out a pencil," and by the time he got off he'd have whipped up forty or fifty jokes. It was "no big deal."
When he graduated from Midwood High in 1953, the Epilog yearbook carried a blank space alongside his photograph. Of the 720 students in the Class of '53, he was the only one who had not participated in a single extracurricular activity. If there had been a student voted least likely to succeed, he was it.
In September Woody's friends went to college: Jack and Elliott to City College of New York; Jerry to Dickinson; and Woody was accepted at New York University. Determined that her son make something of himself, Nettie planned for him a career in pharmacy, completely disregarding his aversion to school, which he would always think of as "a terrible, terrible nasty experience." She also dismissed the fact that he had acquired a manager, Harvey Meltzer, the older brother of a classmate, with whom he signed a five-year contract that gave Harvey a 25 percent commission. So far no work had materialized, and in any case, Nettie never considered show business a sensible job. But what made her imagine Woody would be happy as a pharmacist is hard to fathom.
As a compromise, he enrolled at New York University as a film major, not because of any desire to make films but because it was an easy course. Hoping to get by with a minimum of effort, he took what the school called a limited program—three courses, including Spanish, English, and Motion Picture Production. However, riding the subway to school was too great a temptation for a consummate truant. As the train approached West Fourth Street in the Village, the stop for N.Y.U., a voice kept telling him, "Don't get off here. Keep going." In Times Square he spent the morning skylarking at the Automat, with coffee and the morning papers, browsing in the Circle Magic Shop, then slipping into the Paramount for an early feature. In the afternoons, he trekked across town to the Alber office, where his salary had been increased to
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