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Allan Stewart Königsberg, better known as Woody Allen, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 1 December of 1935. He is a film script writer and actor, and he is currently one of the most respected and prolific directors.
Originating from a Bourgeois Jewish family, "well fed, well dressed and installed in a comfortable house", like he himself defines, as a youngster he learned to play the violin and, later on, the clarinet (that he continues playing in public, together with The New Orleans Jazz Band).
When he found himself finished in secondary school, he started to make jokes to send them to some of the newspapers´ columns of his city and, at 16 years old, he started his career in comedy. In 1953 he enrolled in the University of New York to study the Production Cinematography course. He finished the first semester with dreadful results in various materials and he left without commencing the second semester. One of his teachers once said: “You are not university material. I think you should receive psychiatric help, because I believe you will not have much luck in finding a job”. But then in 1955, he came back with the program ´The Colgate Happy Hour´, which earned him 175$US a week.
In 1957, he received his first prize, the Sylvana Award and, a year later, he decided to adopt the pseudonymous of
Woody Allen. He started to work of his own accord exerting the job of director for the shows that the Borsch Belt hotels held in New York, where important comedians had already performed, like Jerry Lewis.
Since then, he started to act in numerous venues and appear in television programs, until when, thanks to his talent, through the acting in the venue Blue Angel (in 1960), the possibility arose to produce a script and participate as an actor in the film, ´What´s New, Pussy Cat?´. That same year he met two characters that possibly have been the greatest influences: his agents Jack Rollins and Charles Joffe.
In 1968 he shot his first film completely written and directed by him and where he also acted in, ´Take the Money and Run´. It was difficult to find a producer that would finance the project, but this ended up being a success amongst the public.
After that, he had no trouble finding some studio to continue financing his films and, in 1970, he signed a contract with United Artists and commenced filming his second movie, ´Bananas´. In 1977, through filming ´Sleeper´ (1973) and ´Love and Death´ (1975), Allen made the film that gained him his first Oscar: ´Annie Hall´. He was not there to receive it, claiming he forgot about the ceremony. This incident did not serve to increase his scarce popularity in EEUU. Allen declared on various occasions, if it wasn´t for the good reception he received in Europe, it would be impossible to continue filming.
Still, since then, he reached success as a director, screenwriter and actor, creating films related to his love of Manhattan and, in 1979, he made a film that confirmed him once and for all as a cult director and was called, precisely, Manhattan. It was filmed in black and white, with long and tremendous takes of the city.
In 2002, he received the Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes prize and counts with a statue in his honour in Oviedo, Asturias.
In summer of 2007, he filmed a movie in Barcelona and Oviedo featuring
Scarlett Johansson,
Penélope Cruz and
Javier Bardem. The production was run by MediaPro. The photographic director was the winner of numerous Goya prizes, Javier Aguirresarobe.
The actor that normally dubs him in Spanish, when he interprets a role in his films is
Joan Pera, in where Allen offered him a small role in this film, grateful for the work of the Catalan actor. The American has said that thanks to him: “he was more a hero than he is in reality”.