Kelcey Allen was born Eugene Kuttner on November 11, 1875 in the Bedford section of Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was the son of Bernard and Charlotte Weill Kuttner. His father was born in Berlin, Germany, and immigrated to New York City, where he taught languages in the public school system.
Allen attended New York City public schools.
Allen was employed by the New York Clipper, a theatrical trade publication, first as an office boy and messenger and later as an advertising solicitor. He eventually became a reporter, assigned to frequent the dressing rooms and popular gathering places of actors to collect items of news and gossip. In this pursuit Allen acquired a wide knowledge and a lasting love of all things theatrical and made countless friends among the artists and business people connected with the acting profession. He also did occasional reviews of Broadway plays and vaudeville shows.
Around 1915 Allen noticed that Women's Wear Daily, a publication devoted to the garment trade, did not have a theatrical section or a drama critic. He persuaded the editors that since buyers coming to the city were natural theatergoers, the paper should have a column devoted to the theater. Allen was hired as an advertising agent and theater reporter and later served as a drama critic. Instead of being paid a regular salary, he arranged to receive commissions on the advertising he solicited. This form of payment continued throughout his long employment on Women's Wear Daily and proved most lucrative. During this period he changed his name to Eugene Kelcey Allen, after the distinguished actors Herbert Kelcey and Viola Allen. He later discontinued using his first name.
"What Kelcey Allen said" became notable not so much for critical insight as for his nimble and sometimes cutting bon mots. Over the years countless wordplays and wisecracks were attributed to him--such as the legendary comment on a particularly bad play that he could "hear Cain's horses stomping at the stage-door before the end of Act I"--Cain's being a transfer service that moved scenery into and out of theaters. Once, to avoid embarrassment, Allen swore out an affidavit publicly renouncing the authorship of an unflattering joke made at the expense of a production of Macbeth starring Lionel Barrymore. On the opening night, at the point where Macbeth cries out the challenge "Lay on, Macduff, " a voice from the audience muttered loudly, "Lay off, McBride!" The allusion was to a cut-rate agency that disposed of tickets to failing shows. The crack was alleged to have come from Harry Hershfield, another wit, who often accompanied Allen to opening nights.
Allen was seldom seen outside the theaters, save at the Lambs or the Friars clubs, where he could regularly be found in the midst of a group of his theatrical friends swapping stories and witticisms.
In the last few years of his life, Allen's output of reviews and witticisms steadily declined because of his ill health. But he continued to go to all the opening nights and sit in his customary seat on the aisle, always accompanied by a crony of bygone days. He died in New York City.
Allen belonged to the Grand Street Boys and the Friends Club.
Allen accumulated a reputation as a phrase-maker and wit, both in his reviews and in his conversations with professional critics and theatergoers at opening nights.
In later years Allen, who had become conspicuously portly and benign, with eyes that crinkled cheerily and an always jovial smile, greeted friends--especially ladies--in theater lobbies on opening nights by holding out to them a paper bag of flat, white peppermints, from which he urged them to take a few. He usually had one in his own mouth. The mints became known as "Kelcey Allen poison" because of their heavy sugar content and frequent staleness, and were more often than not politely refused.
In 1904 Allen married Anna Ahern of Portland, Connecticut.
