Background

Fred Allen was born John Florence Sullivan on May 31, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of John Henry Sullivan, a bookbinder, and Cecilia Herlihy. His mother died when he was three, leaving him in the care of her sister.

Education

Allen attended the Boston High School of Commerce and worked at night in the Boston Public Library. Among the books he read there was one on the origin and development of comedy; he found it intoxicating and began to collect jokes. He taught himself to juggle tennis balls and tin plates and to balance feathers, broomsticks, and other objects on his chin and forehead. His juggling act, with comic asides, was a hit at a Christmas show given by the library employees. He graduated from high school in 1911.

Career

In 1911 Allen began on the vaudeville circuit, billed as Paul Huckle, European Entertainer. Soon afterward he became Freddy St. James, juggling for $25 a week in small New England theaters. Since he could keep only four balls in the air (an expert juggler could handle eleven), he astutely billed himself as "The World's Worst Juggler"--getting laughs by a line of patter that emphasized his ineptness.

In 1916 Allen toured Australia and New Zealand for eleven months. He juggled and played the banjo, but it was his monologue that captured audiences. He spent his spare time reading Shakespeare, Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne, and current British humorists.

On his return to the United States, he needed a new name to demand a higher salary for his new act, and as Fred Allen he became a star. Variety praised his running-fire comments as "probably the brightest talk ever heard on a vaudeville stage, " and he was given top booking at the Palace Theater on Broadway. In musical revues such as The Passing Show of 1922, The Greenwich Village Follies, The Little Show (1929), and Three's a Crowd (1930) his deadpan, devastating standup patter stopped the show. He always wrote his own lines.

With the demise of vaudeville imminent in the early 1930s, Allen joined other leading comedians in turning to film and radio. He began on radio in October 1932 on "The Linit Bath Club Revue, " a half-hour comedy program. To the new medium he brought his stinging, endearing observations of American life, his striking nasal intonation, and his partner and wife, Portland Hoffa. Her personality on the air, as she fed him questions, sounded according to Allen "like a small E-flat Frankenstein monster. " In 1934 Allen began his own hour-long program, "Town Hall Tonight, " redubbed "The Fred Allen Show" five years later. In 1942 Allen introduced Allen's Alley, probably the program's best-known feature. The improbable street--never described but always left to the audience's imagination--was inhabited by such diverse characters as Falstaff Openshaw, the resident poet; Mrs. Pansy Nussbaum, a Jewish housewife from Brooklyn; the loudmouth Ajax Cassidy; the ageless and taciturn Titus Moody; and the Alley's star character, Beauregard Claghorn, a bombastic Southern senator. Allen left the air in June 1949; his last guest, appropriately, was Jack Benny, with whom he had conducted a well-publicized radio "feud" for over a dozen years. Their rivalry was the subject of Love Thy Neighbor (1940), one of five films in which Allen appeared.

In 1952 he was scheduled to begin a TV series when his first heart attack forced him into semiretirement.

Allen's wit--"the professor was a retired magician who had eaten his rabbit in the early days of his retirement"--and his glorious metaphors, such as his characterization of an overpraised radio performer as "the man with the barefoot voice, " are preserved in Treadmill to Oblivion (1954), which chronicles his early years in radio; Much Ado About Me (1956), which deals with his early years in vaudeville; and his Letters (1965), edited by Joe McCarthy.

He died in New York City.

Achievements

• Allen was best known as one of radio's most original and admired comedians in the Golden Age of American radio. He invented an entirely new form of radio comedy which consisted of lampooning current events, making fun of his sponsors, and presenting skits that featured a cast of memorable recurring characters. Allen was honored with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for contributions to television and radio.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Fred Allen Show OTR Old Time Radio Show MP3 CD 87 Episodes

    (Fred Allen (born John Florence Sullivan on May 31, 1894 i...)

  • Much Ado About Me

    (A second volume in the late humorist's autobiography, thi...)

  • Treadmill to Oblivion

    (Fred Allen was already a vaudeville star when in 1932, he...)

  • It's in the Bag

    (An old tycoon during the last days of his life decides to...)

  • Best of Radio Comedy

Views

Quotations: "I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. "

"Treat employees like partners, and they act like partners. "

"I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the case, and got my tuition back. "

"I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap. "

"Condensed milk is wonderful. I don't see how they can get a cow to sit down on those little cans. "

"The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion. "

"Success is like dealing with your kid or teaching your wife to drive. Sooner or later you'll end up in the police station. "

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "In Fred Allen, the voice of sanity spoke out for all Americans to hear during a trying time in our history, in the classic and penetrating tones of comic satire. " - Novelist Herman Wouk

Connections

In May 1927 Allen married Portland Hoffa.

Father:

John Henry Sullivan

Mother:

Cecilia (Herlihy) Sullivan

Spouse:

Portland (Hoffa) Allen

References

• Jack Benny vs. Fred Allen: The Feud (Old Time Radio)
• Fred Allen's Radio Comedy (American Civilization)
• Fred Allen: His Life and Wit