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Screenplay Writing Techniques

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Conversational topics

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Engaging stories

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Mark Zuckerberg's Story

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Hollywood

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Midnight in Paris was almost never made

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Graham King (Producer)

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Known for: The Departed, The Town, The Aviator

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Michael Arndt (Writer)

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Michael Arndt | Writer, Additional Crew, Producer

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Known for: Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Little Miss Sunshine, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

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Overcoming Stutter

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Writer's Block

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Producer's Mark

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Marty Scorsese (Hugo)

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Martin Scorsese on Hugo | Film4 Interview Special Archives

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Billy Bean and John Henry

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Brad Pitt

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William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. As a public figure, Pitt has been cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in the American entertainment industry.

Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the Ridley Scott road film Thelma & Louise (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with the drama films A River Runs Through It (1992) and Legends of the Fall (1994). He also starred in the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994), alongside Tom Cruise. He gave critically acclaimed performances in David Fincher's crime thriller (1995) and the science fiction film (1995). The latter earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and his first Academy Award nomination.

Pitt found greater commercial success starring in Steven Soderbergh's heist film Ocean's Eleven (2001), and reprised his role in its sequels. He cemented his leading man status starring in blockbusters such as the historical epic (2004), the romantic crime film Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), the horror film (2013), and the action film Bullet Train (2022). Pitt also starred in the critically acclaimed films (1999), (2006), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Burn After Reading (2008), Inglourious Basterds (2009), The Tree of Life (2011), and The Big Short (2015). Pitt received Academy Award nominations for his performances in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and (2011), and he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a stuntman in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

In 2001, Pitt co-founded the production company Plan B Entertainment. He produced The Departed (2006), 12 Years a Slave (2013), and (2016), all of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, while others such as The Tree of Life (2011), Moneyball (2011), (2014), and The Big Short (2015) were nominated for the award.

Pitt was named People's Sexiest Man Alive in 1995 and 2000. His personal life is the subject of wide publicity. He is divorced from actresses Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. Pitt has six children with Jolie, three of whom were adopted internationally.

William Bradley Pitt was born on December 18, 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to William Alvin Pitt, the proprietor of a trucking company, and Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a school counselor. The family soon moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he lived together with his younger siblings, Douglas Pitt (born 1966) and Julie Neal (born 1969). Born into a conservative Christian household, he was raised as Southern Baptist and later "oscillate[d] between agnosticism and atheism." He later reconciled his belief in spirituality. Pitt has described Springfield as " Mark Twain country, Jesse James country," having grown up with "a lot of hills, a lot of lakes."

Pitt attended Kickapoo High School, where he was a member of the golf, swimming, and tennis teams. He participated in the school's Key and Forensics clubs, in school debates, and in musicals. Following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism with a focus on advertising. As graduation approached, Pitt did not feel ready to settle down. He loved films-"a portal into different worlds for me"-and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided to go to where they were made. Two weeks short of completing the coursework for a degree, Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles, where he took acting lessons and worked odd jobs. He has named Gary Oldman, Sean Penn, and Mickey Rourke as his early acting heroes.

Early work (1987-1993)

While struggling to establish himself in Los Angeles, Pitt took lessons from acting coach Roy London. His acting career began in 1987, with uncredited parts in the films (1987), No Man's Land (1987) and Less than Zero (1987). In May 1987, he made his television debut in a two-episode role on the NBC soap opera Another World. In November of the same year, Pitt had a guest appearance on the CBS sitcom Trial and Error and the ABC sitcom Growing Pains. He appeared in four episodes of the CBS primetime series between December 1987 and February 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Charlie Wade (played by Shalane McCall). Later in 1988, Pitt made a guest appearance on the Fox police drama 21 Jump Street. In the same year, the Yugoslavian-U.S. co-production The Dark Side of the Sun (1988) was his first leading film role, starring as a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The film was shelved at the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, and was not released until 1997. Pitt made two motion picture appearances in 1989: the first in a supporting role in the comedy Happy Together; the second a featured role in the horror film Cutting Class, the first of Pitt's films to reach theaters. He made guest appearances on television series Head of the Class, Freddy's Nightmares, Thirtysomething, and (for a second time) Growing Pains.

Pitt was cast as Billy Canton, a drug addict who takes advantage of a young runaway (played by Juliette Lewis) in the 1990 NBC television movie Too Young to Die?, the story of an abused teenager sentenced to death for a murder. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Pitt is a magnificent slimeball as her hoody boyfriend; looking and sounding like a malevolent John Cougar Mellencamp, he's really scary." The same year, Pitt co-starred in six episodes of the short-lived Fox drama and took a supporting role in the HBO television film . His next appearance came in the 1991 film Across the Tracks; Pitt portrayed Joe Maloney, a high school runner with a criminal brother, played by Rick Schroder. The same year he featured in a Levi's jeans TV commercial based around the song " 20th Century Boy" which played in the background. After years of supporting roles in film and frequent television guest appearances, Pitt attracted wider recognition in his supporting role in Ridley Scott's 1991 road film Thelma & Louise. He played J.D., a small-time criminal who befriends Thelma ( Geena Davis). His love scene with Davis has been cited as the event that defined Pitt as a sex symbol. After Thelma & Louise, Pitt starred in the 1991 film Johnny Suede, a low-budget picture about an aspiring rock star, and the 1992 live-action/animated fantasy film , although neither furthered his career, having poor reviews and box office performance.

Pitt took on the role of Paul Maclean in the 1992 biographical film A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford. His portrayal of the character was described by 's Janet Mock as a career-making performance, proving that Pitt could be more than a "cowboy-hatted hunk." He has admitted to feeling under pressure when making the film and thought it was one of his "weakest performances ... It's so weird that it ended up being the one that I got the most attention for." Pitt believed that he benefited from working with such a talented cast and crew. He compared working with Redford to playing tennis with a superior player, saying "when you play with somebody better than you, your game gets better." In 1993, Pitt reunited with Juliette Lewis for the road film Kalifornia. He played Early Grayce, a serial killer and the abusive husband of Lewis' character, in a performance described by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone as "outstanding, all boyish charm and then a snort that exudes pure menace." Pitt also garnered attention for a brief appearance in the cult hit True Romance as a stoner named Floyd, providing comic relief to the action film. He capped the year by winning a ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow.

Breakthrough (1994-1998)

Pitt with Losang Thonden in Argentina on the set of Seven Years in Tibet in 1997

In 1994, Pitt portrayed the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the horror film Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name. He was part of an ensemble cast that included Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas. Despite his winning two MTV Movie Awards at the 1995 ceremony, his performance was poorly received. According to the Dallas Observer, "Brad Pitt [...] is a large part of the problem [in the film]. When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side [...] he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."

Following the release of Interview with the Vampire, Pitt starred in Legends of the Fall (1994), based on a novel by the same name by Jim Harrison, set in the American West during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Portraying Tristan Ludlow, son of Colonel William Ludlow ( Anthony Hopkins) a Cornish immigrant, Pitt received his first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the Best Actor category. Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas co-starred as Pitt's brothers. Although the film's reception was mixed, many film critics praised Pitt's performance. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "Pitt's diffident mix of acting and attitude works to such heartthrob perfection it's a shame the film's superficiality gets in his way." The Deseret News predicted that Legends of the Fall would solidify Pitt's reputation as a lead actor.

In 1995, Pitt starred alongside Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kevin Spacey in the crime thriller , playing a detective on the trail of a serial killer who preys on people he considers guilty of the Seven Deadly Sins. Pitt called it a great movie and declared the part would expand his acting horizons. He expressed his intent to move on from "this 'pretty boy' thing [...] and play someone with flaws." His performance was critically well received, with saying that it was screen acting at its best, further remarking on Pitt's ability to turn in a "determined, energetic, creditable job" as the detective. Seven earned $327 million at the international box office.

Following the success of Seven, Pitt played psychotic anarchist Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's 1995 science fiction film . The movie received predominantly positive reviews, with Pitt praised in particular. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called Twelve Monkeys "fierce and disturbing" and remarked on Pitt's "startlingly frenzied performance", concluding that he "electrifies Jeffrey with a weird magnetism that becomes important later in the film." He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film and received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

The following year, he appeared in the legal drama (1996), based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel of the same name. The film received mixed reviews. In the 1997 film The Devil's Own Pitt starred, opposite Harrison Ford, as Irish Republican Army terrorist Rory Devany, a role for which he was required to learn an Irish accent. Critical opinion was divided on his accent; "Pitt finds the right tone of moral ambiguity, but at times his Irish brogue is too convincing - it's hard to understand what he's saying", wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. The Charleston Gazette opined that it had favored Pitt's accent over the movie. The Devil's Own grossed $140 million worldwide, but was a critical failure.

Later that year, he led as Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean-Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet. Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded significant mountain climbing and trekking practice, including rock climbing in California and the European Alps with his co-star David Thewlis. Pitt had the lead role in 1998's fantasy romance film Meet Joe Black. He portrayed a personification of death inhabiting the body of a young man to learn what it is like to be human. The film received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, Pitt was unable to "make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity." Roger Ebert remarked, "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation."

Rise to prominence (1999-2003)

In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden in , a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher. Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his front teeth which were restored when filming ended. While promoting Fight Club, Pitt said that the film explored not taking one's aggressions out on someone else but to "have an experience, take a punch more and see how you come out on the other end." Fight Club premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival. Despite divided critical opinion on the film as a whole, Pitt's performance was widely praised. Paul Clinton of CNN noted the risky yet successful nature of the film, while Variety remarked upon Pitt's ability to be "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than [...] his breakthrough role in Thelma and Louise". In spite of a worse-than-expected box office performance, Fight Club became a cult classic after its DVD release in 2000.

Pitt in 2001

Pitt was cast as an Irish Traveller boxer with a barely intelligible accent in Guy Ritchie's 2000 gangster film . Several reviewers were critical of Snatch; however, most praised Pitt. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said Pitt was "ideally cast as an Irishman whose accent is so thick even Brits can't understand him", going on to say that, before Snatch, Pitt had been "shackled by roles that called for brooding introspection, but recently he has found his calling in black comic outrageousness and flashy extroversion;" while Amy Taubin of The Village Voice claimed that "Pitt gets maximum comic mileage out of a one-joke role".

The following year Pitt starred opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy The Mexican, a film that garnered a range of reviews but enjoyed box office success. Pitt's next role, in 2001's $143 million-grossing Cold War thriller , was as Tom Bishop, an operative of the CIA's Special Activities Division, mentored by Robert Redford's character. Mark Holcomb of Salon.com enjoyed the film, although he noted that neither Pitt nor Redford provided "much of an emotional connection for the audience".

On November 22, 2001, Pitt made a guest appearance in the eighth season of the television series , playing a man with a grudge against Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, to whom Pitt was married at the time. For this performance he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. In December 2001, Pitt played Rusty Ryan in the heist film Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack original. He joined an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy García, and Julia Roberts. Well received by critics, Ocean's Eleven was highly successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide.

Pitt appeared in two episodes of MTV's reality series in February 2002, first running through the streets of Los Angeles with several cast members in gorilla suits, and in a subsequent episode participating in his own staged abduction. In the same year, Pitt had a cameo role in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He took on his first voice-acting roles in 2003, speaking as the titular character of the DreamWorks animated film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and playing Boomhauer's brother, Patch, in an episode of the animated television series King of the Hill.

Worldwide recognition (2004-2008)

Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in , and reprising his role, Rusty Ryan, in the sequel Ocean's Twelve. He spent six months sword training before the filming of Troy, based on the . An on-set injury to his Achilles tendon delayed production on the picture for several weeks. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post stated that Pitt excelled at such a demanding role. Troy was the first film produced by Plan B Entertainment, a film production company he had founded two years earlier with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures. Ocean's Twelve earned $362 million worldwide, and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described by CNN's Paul Clinton as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford." In 2005, Pitt starred as John Smith in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife Jane Smith. The Star Tribune noted that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry". Mr. & Mrs. Smith earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005.

Pitt at the premiere of Burn After Reading in 2008

For his next film, Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama (2006). Pitt's performance was critically well-received, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said that he was credible and gave the film visibility. Pitt later said he regarded taking the part as one of the best decisions of his career. The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was later featured at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Babel received seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations, winning the Best Drama Golden Globe, and earned Pitt a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe. That same year, Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment produced The Departed, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Pitt was credited on-screen as a producer; however, only Graham King was ruled eligible for the Oscar win.

Reprising his role as Rusty Ryan in a third picture, Pitt starred in 2007's Ocean's Thirteen. While less lucrative than the first two films, this sequel earned $311 million at the international box office. Pitt's next film role was as American outlaw Jesse James in the 2007 Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, adapted from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name. Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of Film Journal International, and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival. As of January 2019, it was his own favorite of his films.

Pitt's next appearance was in the 2008 black comedy Burn After Reading, his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film received a positive reception from critics, with The Guardian calling it "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy", noting that Pitt's performance was one of the funniest. He was later cast as Benjamin Button, the lead in David Fincher's 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a loosely adapted version of a 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story follows a man who is born an octogenarian and ages in reverse, with Pitt's "sensitive" performance making Benjamin Button a "timeless masterpiece", according to Michael Sragow of The Baltimore Sun. The performance earned Pitt his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well as a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination, all in the category for Best Actor. The film received thirteen Academy Award nominations, and grossed $329 million at the box office worldwide.

Established actor (2009-present)

Pitt at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Pitt's next leading role came in 2009 with the Quentin Tarantino-directed war film Inglourious Basterds, which premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France. The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide, and garnered generally favorable reviews. The film received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations and seven MTV Movie Award nominations, including Best Male Performance for Pitt. He next voiced the superhero character Metro Man in the 2010 animated feature . Pitt produced and appeared in Terrence Malick's experimental drama The Tree of Life, co-starring Sean Penn, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In a performance that attracted strong praise, he portrayed the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the drama , which is based on the 2003 book of the same name written by Michael Lewis. Moneyball received six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor for Pitt.

His next role was as mob hitman Jackie Cogan in Andrew Dominik's 2012 Killing Them Softly, based on the novel Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins. In 2013, Pitt starred in , a thriller about a zombie apocalypse, based on Max Brooks's novel of the same name. Pitt also produced the film. World War Z grossed $540 million at the box office worldwide, becoming Pitt's highest grossing picture. Next in 2013, he produced, and played a small role in, 12 Years a Slave, a historical drama based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup. The film received critical acclaim and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning three, including Best Picture. Also in 2013, Pitt had a supporting role in Ridley Scott's The Counselor. Plan B Entertainment landed its first television series on the 2013-2014 schedule, as their joint venture with ABC Studios, the sci-fi/fantasy drama Resurrection, was picked up by ABC.

Pitt at the Japan premiere of War Machine in 2017

Pitt starred in , a World War II film directed and written by David Ayer, and co-starring Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, Michael Peña, and Jason Issacs. The film was released on October 17, 2014. By the end of its run, Fury proved to be a commercial and critical success; it grossed more than $211 million worldwide and received highly positive reviews from critics. In 2015, Pitt starred opposite his wife, Jolie, in her third directorial effort, , a romantic drama about a marriage in crisis, based on her screenplay. The film was their first collaboration since 2005's Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Pitt's next role came with the biographical comedy-drama The Big Short, which he also produced and also co-starred alongside Christian Bale, Steve Carell, and Ryan Gosling. The film was a commercial and critical success. It went on to gross over $102 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, earning Pitt his third Academy Award nomination as producer. In 2016, Pitt starred in Robert Zemeckis's romantic thriller , in which he plays an assassin who falls in love with a French spy (played by Marion Cotillard) during a mission to kill a German official in World War II. In 2017, he starred in the Netflix satirical war comedy War Machine, which he also produced. Pitt played a recurring role as a weatherman on the late-night talk show The Jim Jefferies Show throughout 2017.

A 2017 sequel to World War Z was in announced in 2016, before the film was briefly delayed, then confirmed to be directed by David Fincher, and then ultimately shelved due to budget issues. Pitt starred as Cliff Booth, a stunt double, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, reuniting with DiCaprio after The Departed, which Pitt produced and DiCaprio starred in. For his performance in the film, he received awards for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Critics' Choice Movie Awards. This is the second Academy Award for Brad Pitt, his first that he received for acting. In 2019, he also starred in James Gray's deep space epic , in which he played Roy McBride, a space engineer searching the galaxy for his father. Pitt's performance was praised as one of his career-best turn, delivering a performance "that weaponizes passivity into a lethal form of self-defense". On April 25, 2020 Pitt portrayed Dr. Anthony Fauci in the cold open on Saturday Night Live earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series nomination.

In 2021, Pitt entered the recording business by creating a company with French record producer Damien Quintard. Set in Pitt's Chateau Miraval in South of France, Miraval Studios will re-open in 2022 after two decades of inactivity. The previous version of the studio was one of the most iconic studios in the world, producing the records for Pink Floyd, the Cranberries, AC/DC, Sade and Muse, among others.

In 2022, Pitt starred in Bullet Train, directed by David Leitch, and reunited with his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood co-star Margot Robbie in , directed by Damien Chazelle. In September 2021, it was revealed that he will reteam with George Clooney in a thriller film written and directed by Jon Watts. On January 5, 2022, he signed on to star in and produce a racing film on Formula One, directed by Joseph Kosinski, for which he will earn $30 million.

Philanthropy and activism

Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, in which he supported John Kerry. Later in October, he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find", he said. In support of this he endorsed Proposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide state government funding for stem-cell research.

Pitt at the 'Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict' in 2014

Pitt supports One Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world. He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current global health issues. The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region. Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention on stopping "mass atrocities".

Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture, even taking time away from film to study computer-aided design at the Los Angeles offices of renowned architect Frank Gehry. He narrated e2 design, a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design. In 2000, he co-authored an architectural book on the Blacker House with the architects Thomas A. Heinz and Randell Makinson. In 2006, he founded the Make It Right Foundation, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services. Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations. The first six homes were completed in October 2008, and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated. Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of green housing as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.

In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world. The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders, followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl. According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006 and $3.4 million in 2007. In June 2009, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants. In January 2010, the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Pitt is a supporter of same-sex marriage. In an October 2006 interview with , Pitt said that he would marry Jolie when everyone in America is legally able to marry. In September 2008, he donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage. In March 2012, Pitt was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, - a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage - as Judge Vaughn Walker.

In September 2012, Pitt reaffirmed his support for Obama, saying, "I am an Obama supporter and I'm backing his U.S. election campaign." In October 2020, he narrated an advertisement for Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign.

Personal life

Relationships

Pitt with his then-partner Angelina Jolie at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival

From the late 1980s to early 1990s, Pitt was romantically involved with several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens ( Head of the Class), Jill Schoelen ( Cutting Class), and Juliette Lewis ( Too Young to Die? and Kalifornia). Subsequently, Pitt had a much-publicized romance and engagement to his Seven co-star, Gwyneth Paltrow, whom he dated from 1994 to 1997.

Pitt met actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998; they married in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. In January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced they had decided to separate. Two months later, Aniston filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Pitt and Aniston's divorce was finalized by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 2, 2005. Despite media reports that Pitt and Aniston had an acrimonious relationship, Pitt said in a February 2009 interview that he and Aniston "check in with each other", adding that they were both big parts of each other's lives.

During Pitt's divorce proceedings, his involvement with his Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie attracted media attention. Jolie and Pitt stated that they fell in love on the set and that there was no infidelity. In April 2005, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazzi photographs emerged showing Pitt, Jolie, and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya; the press interpreted the pictures as evidence of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie. Throughout 2005, the two were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple " Brangelina". On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child, thereby publicly acknowledging their relationship for the first time. Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April 2012 after seven years together. They were legally married on August 14, 2014, in Los Angeles. They had their wedding in a private ceremony in Château Miraval, France on August 23, 2014. On September 19, 2016, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt, citing irreconcilable differences. On April 12, 2019, the court declared Jolie and Pitt legally single.

In 2022, Pitt began dating Ines de Ramon, a jewelry designer who is 29 years younger than him.

In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she adopted her second child, Zahara Marley. On December 3, 2005, Pitt was in the process of becoming the adoptive father of Zahara, and Jolie's first adopted child, Maddox Chivan. On January 19, 2006, a California judge granted Jolie's request to change the children's surnames from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt". The adoptions were finalized soon after.

Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh Nouvel in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would qualify for a Namibian passport. The couple sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images; the North American rights were purchased by People for over $4.1 million, while obtained the British rights for approximately $3.5 million. The proceeds from the sale were donated to charities serving African children. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it marked the first time an infant was recreated in wax by Madame Tussauds.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted three-year-old Pax Thien from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Pitt adopted Pax in the United States on February 21, 2008.

At the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins. She gave birth to son Knox Léon and daughter Vivienne Marcheline on July 12, 2008 in Nice, France. The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for $14 million- the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The couple donated the proceeds to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

In September 2016, the FBI and the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services investigated Pitt for child abuse following an incident on a plane, where Pitt was accused by an anonymous person of being "verbally abusive" and "physical" towards one of his children. In its final report on the investigation, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services ruled that Pitt did not physically abuse any of his children. Pitt was also cleared by the FBI of any wrongdoing.

Since Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt on September 19, 2016, they have been embroiled in a custody battle over their children. Jolie had full custody until May 2021 when Pitt was granted joint custody, over four and a half years after proceedings began. However, in July, Los Angeles superior court judge John W. Ouderkirk was removed from the case due to concerns over his impartiality as he did not sufficiently disclose business relationships with Pitt's lawyers. This resulted in the custody arrangement reverting to a previous November 2018 agreement where Jolie has primary physical custody while Pitt has "custodial time" with their minor children.

Alcoholism

In September 2016, Pitt got sober and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. In December 2019, he wrote an article for in which he talked with his Legends of the Fall and Meet Joe Black costar and fellow recovering alcoholic Anthony Hopkins about their experiences with addiction and recovery.

Cannabis use

Pitt has admitted to using cannabis in the late '90s as a way to deal with his increasing fame. According to Pitt: "I was hiding out from the celebrity thing; I was smoking way too much dope; I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut." He reduced his cannabis use and focused on his work after a trip to Morocco, where he witnessed extreme poverty and suffering.

Prosopagnosia

In 2022, Pitt said that he had struggled for years to recognize people's faces due to prosopagnosia (face blindness). In a 2013 interview, he said that his inability to recognize people's faces had become so severe that he often wanted to stay home. Formally, however, Pitt has not been diagnosed with prosopagnosia.

Pitt has an interest in art, learned pottery, and has created sculptures. Nine of his sculptures were exhibited together with works by musician Nick Cave and artist Thomas Houseago at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland in 2022-2023.

Public image

Pitt at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival

Pitt has been cited as a sex symbol by many sources, including , who named him one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history in 1995. The same year, he was named People's Sexiest Man Alive, an accolade he received again in 2000. Pitt appeared on ' annual Celebrity 100 list of the 100 most powerful celebrities from 2006 to 2008 placing at numbers 20, 5 and 10, respectively. In 2007, he appeared on the Time 100 list, a compilation of the 100 most influential people in the world, as selected annually by magazine. The magazine credited Pitt for using "his star power to get people to look [to where] cameras don't usually catch". He was again included on the Time 100 in 2009, this time in the "Builders and Titans" list.

Beginning in 2005, Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie became one of the world's most reported celebrity stories. After Jolie was confirmed to be pregnant in early 2006, the intense media hype surrounding the couple reached what Reuters, in a story titled "The Brangelina fever," called "the point of insanity". To avoid media attention, the couple flew to Namibia for the birth of their daughter Shiloh, which was described by a paparazzi blog as "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ." Similarly, intense media interest greeted the announcement of Jolie's second pregnancy two years later; for the two weeks Jolie spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.

In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets, Pitt, together with Jolie, were found to be the favorite celebrity endorsers for brands and products worldwide. Pitt has appeared in several television commercials. For the U.S. market, he starred in a Heineken commercial aired during the 2005 Super Bowl; it was directed by David Fincher, who had directed Pitt in Seven, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Other commercial appearances came in television spots including Acura Integra, in which he was featured opposite Russian model Tatiana Sorokko, as well as SoftBank, and Edwin Jeans. On June 2, 2015, the minor planet 29132 Bradpitt was named in his honor.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. As a public figure, Pitt has been cited as one of the most powerful and influential people in the American entertainment industry.

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Woody Allen

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Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many accolades, including the most nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, with 16. He has won four Academy Awards, ten BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Grammy Award, as well as nominations for a Emmy Award and a Tony Award. Allen was awarded an Honorary Golden Lion in 1995, the BAFTA Fellowship in 1997, an Honorary Palme d'Or in 2002, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2014. Two of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Allen began his career writing material for television in the 1950s, alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, and Neil Simon. He also published several books of short stories and wrote humor pieces for The New Yorker. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian in Greenwich Village, where he developed a monologue style (rather than traditional jokes) and the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish. During this time he released three comedy albums, earning a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album nomination for the self-titled Woody Allen (1964).

After writing, directing, and starring in a string of slapstick comedies, such as Take the Money and Run (1969), (1971), (1973), and Love and Death (1975), he directed his most successful film, (1977), a romantic comedy featuring Allen and his frequent collaborator Diane Keaton. The film won four Academy Awards, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress for Keaton. Allen has directed many films set in New York City, including (1979), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).

Allen continued to garner acclaim, making a film almost every year, and is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of auteur filmmakers whose work has been influenced by European art cinema. His films include (1978), Stardust Memories (1980), (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), (1987), Husbands and Wives (1992), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Deconstructing Harry (1997), Match Point (2005), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Midnight in Paris (2011), and Blue Jasmine (2013).

In 1979, Allen began a professional and personal relationship with actress Mia Farrow. Over a decade-long period, they collaborated on 13 films and conceived a child, the journalist Ronan Farrow. The couple separated after Allen began a relationship in 1991 with Mia's and Andre Previn's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. In 1992, Farrow publicly accused Allen of sexually abusing their adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. The allegation gained substantial media attention, but Allen was never charged or prosecuted, and vehemently denied the allegation. Allen married Previn in 1997. They have adopted two children.

Allen as a high school senior in 1953

Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in New York City on November 30, 1935. Though his family lived in Brooklyn, the birth took place at Mount Eden Hospital in the Bronx. He is Jewish. Allen's parents were Nettie ( née Cherry; 1906-2002), a bookkeeper at her family's delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg (1900-2001), a jewelry engraver and waiter. His grandparents were immigrants to the U.S. from Austria and the Lithuanian city of Panevėžys. They spoke German, Hebrew and Yiddish. He and his younger sister, film producer Letty, were raised in Brooklyn's Midwood neighborhood. Both their parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Allen's parents did not get along, and he had an estranged relationship with his authoritarian, ill-tempered mother. He spoke German in his early years.[citation needed ] He later joked that he was often sent to interfaith summer camps when he was young. While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 (now the Isaac Asimov School for Science and Literature) and Midwood High School, graduating in 1953. Unlike his comic persona, he was more interested in baseball than school and his strong arm ensured he was picked first for teams. He impressed students with his talent for cards and magic tricks.

Allen wrote jokes (or "gags") for agent David O. Alber to make money, and Alber sold them to newspaper columnists. At age 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and later began to call himself Woody. According to Allen, his first published joke read: "Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O.P.S. prices-over people's salaries." He was soon earning more than both of his parents combined. After high school, he attended New York University, studying communication and film in 1953, before dropping out after failing the course "Motion Picture Production". He studied film at City College of New York in 1954, but left during the first semester. He taught himself rather than studying in the classroom. He later taught at The New School and studied with writing teacher Lajos Egri.

1955-1959: Comedy writer and television work

Allen in the 1960s

Allen began writing short jokes when he was 15, and the following year began sending them to various Broadway writers to see if they'd be interested in buying any. One of those writers was Abe Burrows, coauthor of Guys and Dolls, who wrote, "Wow! His stuff was dazzling." Burrows then wrote Allen letters of introduction to Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, and Peter Lind Hayes, who immediately sent Allen a check for just the jokes Burrows included as samples.

As a result of the jokes Allen mailed to various writers, he was invited, then age 19, to join the NBC Writer's Development Program in 1955, followed by a job on The NBC Comedy Hour in Los Angeles. He was later hired as a full-time writer for humorist Herb Shriner, initially earning $25 a week. He began writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, specials for Sid Caesar post-Caesar's Hour (1954-1957), and other television shows. By the time he was working for Caesar, he was earning $1,500 a week. He worked alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, and Neil Simon. He also worked with Danny Simon, whom Allen credits for helping form his writing style. In 1962 alone, he estimated that he wrote twenty thousand jokes for various comics. Allen also wrote for the Candid Camera television show, and appeared in some episodes.

He wrote jokes for the Buddy Hackett sitcom and for The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, and in 1958 he co-wrote a few Sid Caesar specials with Larry Gelbart. After writing for many of television's leading comedians and comedy shows, Allen was gaining a reputation as a "genius", composer Mary Rodgers said. When given an assignment for a show he would leave and come back the next day with "reams of paper", according to producer Max Liebman. Similarly, after he wrote for Bob Hope, Hope called him "half a genius". His daily writing routine could last as long as 15 hours, and he could focus and write anywhere necessary. Dick Cavett was amazed at Allen's capacity to write: "He can go to a typewriter after breakfast and sit there until the sun sets and his head is pounding, interrupting work only for coffee and a brief walk, and then spend the whole evening working." When Allen wrote for other comedians, they would use eight out of ten of his jokes. When he began performing as a stand-up, he was much more selective, typically using only one out of ten jokes. He estimated that to prepare for a 30-minute show, he spent six months of intensive writing. He enjoyed writing, despite the work: "Nothing makes me happier than to tear open a ream of paper. And I can't wait to fill it! I love to do it."

Allen started writing short stories and cartoon captions for magazines such as The New Yorker; he was inspired by the tradition of New Yorker humorists S. J. Perelman, George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley, and Max Shulman, whose material he modernized. His collections of short pieces includes Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. His early comic fiction was influenced by the zany, pun-ridden humor of S.J. Perelman. In 2010 Allen released audio versions of his books in which he read 73 selections entitled, The Woody Allen Collection. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.

1960-1969: Stand-up comedian

Allen, Polly Bergen, and Andy Williams on The Andy Williams Show in 1965

From 1960 to 1969 Allen performed as a comedian to supplement his comedy writing. He worked in various places around Greenwich Village, including The Bitter End and Cafe Au Go Go, alongside such contemporaries as Lenny Bruce, the team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Joan Rivers, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Dick Cavett, Bill Cosby and Mort Sahl (his personal favorite), as well as such other artists of the day as Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand. Comedian Milton Berle claims to have suggested to Allen to go into standup comedy and even introduced him at the Village Vanguard. Comedy historian Gerald Nachman writes that Allen, while not the first to do standup, eventually had greater impact than all the others in the 1960s, and redefined standup comedy: "He helped turn it into biting, brutally honest satirical commentary on the cultural and psychological tenor of the times."

After Allen was taken under the wing of his new manager, Jack Rollins, who had recently discovered Nichols and May, Rollins suggested he perform his written jokes as a stand-up. Allen was resistant at first, but after seeing Mort Sahl on stage, he felt safer to give it a try: "I'd never had the nerve to talk about it before. Then Mort Sahl came along with a whole new style of humor, opening up vistas for people like me." Allen made his professional stage debut at the Blue Angel nightclub in Manhattan in October 1960, where comedian Shelley Berman introduced him as a young television writer who would perform his own material.

His early stand-up shows with his different style of humor were not always well received or understood by his audiences. Unlike other comedians, Allen spoke to his audiences in a gentle and conversational style, often appearing to be searching for words, although he was well rehearsed. He acted "normal", dressed casually, and made no attempt to project a stage "personality". And he did not improvise: "I put very little premium on improvisation," he told Studs Terkel. His jokes were created from life experiences, and typically presented with a dead serious demeanor that made them funnier: "I don't think my family liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib." The subjects of his jokes were rarely topical, political or socially relevant. Unlike Bruce and Sahl, he did not discuss current events such as civil rights, women's rights, the Cold War, or Vietnam. And although he was described as a "classic nebbish", he did not tell the standard Jewish jokes of the period. Comedy screenwriter Larry Gelbart compared Allen's style to Elaine May's: "He just styled himself completely after her". Like Nichols and May, he often made fun of intellectuals.

Cavett, who was among the minority to quickly appreciate Allen's style, recalls seeing the Blue Angel audience mostly ignore Allen's monologue: "I recognized immediately that there was no young comedian in the country in the same class with him for sheer brilliance of jokes, and I resented the fact that the audience was too dumb to realize what they were getting." It was his subdued stage presence that eventually became one of Allen's strongest traits, Nachman argues: "The utter absence of showbiz veneer and shtick was the best shtick any comedian had ever devised. This uneasy onstage naturalness became a trademark." When the media finally noticed, writers like The New York Times's Arthur Gelb described Allen's nebbish quality as " Chaplinesque" and "refreshing". Allen developed an anxious, nervous, and intellectual persona for his stand-up act, a move that secured regular gigs for him in nightclubs and on television. He brought innovation to the comedy monologue, genre and his stand-up comedy is considered influential.

Allen on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1964

Allen first appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on November 1, 1963, and over nine years his guest appearances included 17 in the host's chair. He subsequently released three LP albums of live nightclub recordings: the self-titled Woody Allen (1964), Volume 2 (1965), and The Third Woody Allen Album (1968), recorded at a fund-raiser for Senator Eugene McCarthy's presidential run. In 1965, Allen filmed a half-hour standup special in England for Granada Television, titled The Woody Allen Show in the U.K. and Woody Allen: Standup Comic in the U.S. It is the only complete standup show of Allen's on film. The same year, Allen, along with Nichols and May, Barbra Streisand, Carol Channing, Harry Belafonte, Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, and Alfred Hitchcock, took part in Lyndon B. Johnson's inaugural gala in Washington, D.C., on January 18, 1965. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson described Allen and the event in her published diary, A White House Diary, writing in part, "Woody Allen, that forlorn, undernourished little comedian, stopped shooting a movie in Paris and flew across the Atlantic for about five minutes of jokes".

In 1966, Allen wrote an hourlong musical comedy television special for CBS, Gene Kelly in New York City. It focused on Gene Kelly in a musical tour around Manhattan, dancing along such landmarks as Rockefeller Center, the Plaza Hotel and the Museum of Modern Art, which serve as backdrops for the show's production numbers. Allen appeared in the special alongside Kelly. Guest stars included choreographer Gower Champion, British musical comedy star Tommy Steele, and singer Damita Jo DeBlanc. In 1967, Allen hosted a TV special for NBC, Woody Allen Looks at 1967. It featured Liza Minnelli, who acted alongside Allen in some skits; Aretha Franklin, the musical guest; and conservative writer William F. Buckley, the featured guest. In 1969, Allen hosted his first American special for CBS television, The Woody Allen Special, which included skits with Candice Bergen, a musical performance by the 5th Dimension, and an interview between Allen and Billy Graham.

Allen also performed standup comedy on other series, including The Andy Williams Show and The Perry Como Show, where he interacted with other guests and occasionally sang.[citation needed ] In 1971, he hosted one of his final Tonight Shows, with guests Bob Hope and James Coco. Hope praised Allen on the show, calling him "one of the finest young talents in show business and a great delight". magazine put Allen on the cover of its March 21, 1969, issue.

1965-1976: Broadway debut and early films

Allen with the Broadway cast of Play It Again, Sam (1969)

Allen's first movie was the Charles K. Feldman production What's New Pussycat? (1965), for which he wrote the screenplay. He was disappointed with the final product, which led him to direct every film he wrote thereafter except Play It Again, Sam. Allen's first directorial effort was What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966, co-written with Mickey Rose), in which an existing Japanese spy movie-Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi ( International Secret Police: Key of Keys, 1965)-was redubbed in English by Allen and friends with fresh new, comic dialogue. In 1967, Allen played Jimmy Bond in the James Bond spoof Casino Royale.

In 1966, Allen wrote the play Don't Drink the Water. The play starred Lou Jacobi, Kay Medford, Anita Gillette and Allen's future movie co-star Tony Roberts. A film adaptation of the play, directed by Howard Morris, was released in 1969, starring Jackie Gleason. Because he was not particularly happy with that version, in 1994 Allen directed and starred in a second version for television, with Michael J. Fox and Mayim Bialik.

The next play Allen wrote for Broadway was Play It Again, Sam, in which he also starred. The play opened on February 12, 1969, and ran for 453 performances. It featured Diane Keaton and Roberts. The play was significant to Keaton's budding career, and she has said she was in "awe" of Allen even before auditioning for her role, which was the first time she met him. In a 2013 interview Keaton said that she "fell in love with him right away", adding, "I wanted to be his girlfriend so I did something about it." After co-starring alongside Allen in the subsequent film version of Play It Again, Sam, she later co-starred in Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Interiors and Manhattan. "He showed me the ropes and I followed his lead. He is the most disciplined person I know. He works very hard," Keaton has said.

Diane Keaton, Allen, and Jerry Lacy in Play it Again, Sam (1972)

In 1969, Allen directed, starred in, and co-wrote (with Mickey Rose) Take the Money and Run, which he considers his true film directorial debut. The film is directed as a " mockumentary spoof" about a inept bank robber played by Allen. The film received positive reviews; critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Allen has made a movie that is, in effect, a feature-length, two-reel comedy-something very special and eccentric and funny." Allen received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination and later signed a deal with United Artists to produce several films.

During the 1970s, Allen wrote, directed and starred in films later known as his "early, funny" work. In 1971, he made , in which he plays Fielding Mellish, a bumbling New Yorker who travels to Latin America, where he unwittingly becomes a leader of a nation amid a rebellion. The film co-stars Allen's then girlfriend, Louise Lasser, and Carlos Montalbán. It also features a brief appearance by Sylvester Stallone as a train thief and Howard Cosell as himself. In an interview with Roger Ebert, Allen said of making the movie, "The big, broad laugh comedy is a form that's rarely made these days and sometimes I think it's the hardest kind of movie to make...with a comedy like 'Bananas,' if they're not laughing, you're dead, because laughs are all you have."

The next year, he made the anthology comedy film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), loosely based on the 1969 book of the same name. It stars Allen, Gene Wilder, Lou Jacobi, Anthony Quayle, Tony Randall, and Burt Reynolds. The film received mixed reviews, with writing, "the jokes are well-worn, and good, manic ideas are congealing into formulas". The same year, Allen wrote and starred in the film Play It Again, Sam, based on his 1969 play of the same name. It was directed by Herbert Ross and co-stars Diane Keaton (their first film collaboration). He reunited with Keaton in (1973), about a man who is cryogenically frozen and later defrosted in a science fiction dystopia. Allen has said the film is a tribute to Groucho Marx and Bob Hope. Sleeper was the first of four screenplays co-written by Allen and Marshall Brickman.

Allen collaborated again with Keaton in the comedy Love and Death (1975), set during the Napoleonic era and a satire of Russian literature and film. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it Allen's "finest work" to date. In 1976, he starred as cashier Howard Prince in directed by Martin Ritt. The Front was a humorous and poignant account of Hollywood blacklisting during the 1950s; Ritt, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and three cast members- Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, and Lloyd Gough -had been blacklisted.

I don't like meeting heroes. There's nobody I want to meet and nobody I want to work with-I'd rather work with Diane Keaton than anyone-she's absolutely great, a natural.

1977-1989: Established career

Then came two of Allen's most popular films: and . Annie Hall (1977) won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Diane Keaton, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for Allen. It set the standard for modern romantic comedy and ignited a fashion trend with the clothes Keaton wore in the film. In an interview with journalist Katie Couric, Keaton did not deny that Allen wrote the part for and about her. The film is ranked 35th on the American Film Institute's "100 Best Movies" and fourth on the AFI list of the "100 Best Comedies".

In 1979, Allen paid tribute to one of his comedy idols, Bob Hope, at the Film Society at Lincoln Center, creating a special for the event titled "My Favorite Comedian" that included clips from Hope's films, selected and narrated by Allen. Hope said of the honor, "It's great to have your past spring up in front of your eyes, especially when it's done by Woody Allen, because he's a near genius. Not a whole genius, but a near genius". Dick Cavett hosted the event, but Allen was absent, editing . Guests included Keaton, Kurt Vonnegut, and Andy Warhol.

(1979) is a black-and-white romantic comedy often viewed as an homage to New York City. It has iconic scenes filmed in the city, including an opening montage of scenes around the city, and Allen and Keaton's silhouette on a bench by the Queensboro Bridge. As in many Allen films, the main protagonists are upper-middle-class writers and academics. Manhattan focuses on the complicated relationship between middle-aged Isaac Davis (Allen) and 17-year-old Tracy ( Mariel Hemingway), and co-stars Keaton and Meryl Streep. It was a box-office and critical hit, and received two Academy Award nominations, for Hemingway for Best Supporting Actress and for Allen's screenplay. Keaton, who has made eight movies with Allen, has said, "He just has a mind like nobody else. He's bold. He's got a lot of strength, a lot of courage in terms of his work. And that is what it takes to do something really unique. Along with a genius imagination."

Allen's films in the 1980s, even the comedies, became somber with philosophical undertones, influenced by European directors, especially Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. Stardust Memories was based on , which it parodies, and Wild Strawberries. A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy was adapted from Smiles of a Summer Night. In Hannah and Her Sisters, part of the film's structure and background is borrowed from Fanny and Alexander. Fellini's inspired . resembles Bergman's Autumn Sonata. Another Woman and Crimes and Misdemeanors have elements reminiscent of Wild Strawberries.

Stardust Memories (1980) features Sandy Bates, a successful filmmaker played by Allen, who expresses resentment and scorn for his fans. Overcome by the recent death of a friend from illness, Bates says, "I don't want to make funny movies anymore" and a running gag has various people (including visiting space aliens) telling him that they appreciate his films, "especially the early, funny ones." Allen considers this one of his best films.

Mia's a good actress who can play many different roles. She has a very good range, and can play serious to comic roles. She's also very photogenic, very beautiful on screen. She's just a good realistic actress ... and no matter how strange and daring it is, she does it well.

-Woody Allen (1993)

In 1981, Allen's play The Floating Light Bulb, starring Danny Aiello and Bea Arthur, premiered on Broadway and ran for 65 performances. While receiving mixed reviews, it gave autobiographical insight into Allen's childhood, specifically his fascination with magic tricks. The play, set in 1945, is a semi-autobiographical tale of a lower-middle-class Brooklyn family. New York Times critic Frank Rich gave the play a mild review, writing, "there are a few laughs, a few well-wrought characters, and, in Act II, a beautifully written scene that leads to a moving final curtain". Rich compared it to Tennessee Williams's work. Allen has written several off-Broadway one-act plays, including Riverside Drive, Old Saybrook and A Second Hand Memory, at the Variety Arts Theatre.

A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) was the first movie Allen made starring Mia Farrow, who stepped into Diane Keaton's role when Keaton was shooting . He next directed , in which he starred as a man who has the ability to transform his appearance to match the people around him.

Allen has combined tragic and comic elements in such films as Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), in which he tells two stories that connect at the end. He has also made three films about show business: Broadway Danny Rose, in which he plays a down-on-his-luck New York show business agent; The Purple Rose of Cairo, set during the Great Depression, in which a movie character comes to life to romance an unhappy housewife; and , a film about his childhood in Brooklyn and the importance of the radio. The film co-starred Farrow in a part Allen wrote for her. Time magazine called The Purple Rose of Cairo one of the 100 best films of all time. Allen has called it one of his three best films, with Stardust Memories and Match Point. By "best", he said he meant they came closest to his vision. In 1989, Allen and directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese made New York Stories, an anthology film about New Yorkers. Allen's short, Oedipus Wrecks, is about a neurotic lawyer and his critical mother. Film critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised the segment as a "priceless contribution" to the film.

1990-2004: Continued work

Allen's 1991 film Shadows and Fog is a black-and-white homage to the German expressionists and features the music of Kurt Weill. Allen then made his critically acclaimed comedy-drama Husbands and Wives (1992), which received two Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actress for Judy Davis and Best Original Screenplay for Allen. Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) combined suspense with dark comedy and marked the return of Diane Keaton, Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston.

He returned to lighter fare such as the showbiz comedy involving mobsters Bullets Over Broadway (1994), which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, followed by a musical, Everyone Says I Love You (1996). The singing and dancing scenes in Everyone Says I Love You are similar to musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The comedy Mighty Aphrodite (1995), in which Greek drama plays a large role, won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Mira Sorvino. Allen's 1999 jazz-based comedy-drama Sweet and Lowdown was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Sean Penn (Best Actor) and Samantha Morton (Best Supporting Actress). In contrast to these lighter movies, Allen veered into darker satire toward the end of the decade with Deconstructing Harry (1997) and (1998).

On March 8, 1995, Allen's one-act play Central Park West opened off-Broadway as a part of a larger piece titled Death Defying Acts, with two other one-act plays, one by David Mamet and one by Elaine May. Critics described Allen's contribution as "the longest and most substantial of the evening". During this decade Allen also starred in the television film The Sunshine Boys (1995), based on the Neil Simon play of the same name, and made a sitcom "appearance" via telephone in a 1997 episode, "My Dinner with Woody", of Just Shoot Me! that paid tribute to several of his films. He provided the voice of Z in DreamWorks' first animated film, (1998), which featured many actors he had worked with; Allen's character was similar to his earlier roles.

Small Time Crooks (2000) was Allen's first film with the DreamWorks studio and represented a change in direction: he began giving more interviews and made an attempt to return to his slapstick roots. The film is similar to the 1942 film Larceny, Inc. (from a play by S. J. Perelman). Allen never commented on whether this was deliberate or if his film was in any way inspired by it. Small Time Crooks was a relative financial success, grossing over $17 million domestically, but Allen's next four films foundered at the box office, including Allen's most costly film, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (with a budget of $26 million). Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, and Melinda and Melinda have "rotten" ratings on film-review website Rotten Tomatoes and each earned less than $4 million domestically. Some critics claimed that Allen's early 2000s films were subpar and expressed concern that his best years were behind him. Others were less harsh; reviewing the little-liked Melinda and Melinda, Roger Ebert wrote, "I cannot escape the suspicion that if Woody had never made a previous film, if each new one was Woody's Sundance debut, it would get a better reception. His reputation is not a dead shark but an albatross, which with admirable economy Allen has arranged for the critics to carry around their own necks."

2005-2014: Career resurgence

Allen in 2006

"In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now", Allen said in a 2004 interview. "The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films-if they get a good film they're twice as happy but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500 million." Allen traveled to London, where he made Match Point (2005), one of his most successful films of the decade, garnering positive reviews. Set in London, it starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson. It is markedly darker than Allen's first four films with DreamWorks SKG. In Match Point Allen shifts focus from the intellectual upper class of New York to the moneyed upper class of London. The film earned more than $23 million domestically (more than any of his films in nearly 20 years) and over $62 million in international box office sales. It earned Allen his first Academy Award nomination since 1998, for Best Writing - Original Screenplay, with directing and writing nominations at the Golden Globes, his first Globe nominations since 1987. In a 2006 interview with Premiere Magazine he said it was the best film he had ever made.

Allen reached an agreement to film Vicky Cristina Barcelona in Avilés, Barcelona, and Oviedo, Spain, where shooting started on July 9, 2007. The movie featured Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall and Penélope Cruz. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival to rapturous reviews, and became a box office success. Vicky Cristina Barcelona won Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globe awards. Cruz received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In April 2008 he began filming Whatever Works, a film aimed more toward older audiences, starring Larry David, Patricia Clarkson, and Evan Rachel Wood. Released in 2009 and described as a dark comedy, it follows the story of a botched suicide attempt turned messy love triangle. Allen wrote Whatever Works in the 1970s, and David's character was written for Zero Mostel, who died the year Annie Hall came out. Allen was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, filmed in London, stars Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Anupam Kher, Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts. Filming started in July 2009. It was released theatrically in the U.S. on September 23, 2010, following a Cannes debut in May 2010, and a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010.

Allen announced that his next film would be titled Midnight in Paris, starring Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Corey Stoll, Allison Pill, Tom Hiddleston, Adrien Brody, Kathy Bates, and Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France at the time of production. The film follows a young engaged couple in Paris who see their lives transformed. It debuted at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on May 12, 2011. Allen said he wanted to "show the city emotionally" during the press conference. "I just wanted it to be the way I saw Paris-Paris through my eyes", he said. The film was almost universally praised, receiving a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Midnight in Paris won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and became his highest-grossing film, making $151 million worldwide on a $17 million budget.

On October 20, 2011, Allen's one-act play Honeymoon Motel opened on Broadway as part of a larger piece titled Relatively Speaking, with two other one-act plays by Ethan Coen and Elaine May. In February 2012, Allen appeared on a panel at the 92nd Street Y in New York City with moderators Dick Cavett and Annette Insdorf, discussing his films and career.

His next film, To Rome with Love (2012), was a Rome-set comedy that starred Jesse Eisenberg, Elliot Page, Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Greta Gerwig, and Judy Davis. The film was structured in four vignettes featuring dialogue in both Italian and English. It marked Allen's return to acting since his last role in Scoop. Bob Mondello gave it a mixed review, writing, " To Rome with Love is just froth-a romantic sampler with some decent jokes and gorgeous Roman backdrops. It goes down easily, but I have to say it's interesting less for what it is than for how it is."

Allen's next film, Blue Jasmine, debuted in July 2013. The film is set in San Francisco and New York, and stars Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, and Peter Sarsgaard. It opened to critical acclaim, with Eric Kohn of calling it "his most significant movie in years". The film earned Allen another Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and Blanchett received the Academy Award for Best Actress. Allen co-starred with John Turturro in Fading Gigolo, written and directed by Turturro, which premiered in September 2013. Also in 2013, Allen shot the romantic comedy Magic in the Moonlight with Emma Stone, and Colin Firth in Nice, France. The film is set in the 1920s on the French Riviera. The film was a modest financial success, earning $51 million on a budget of $16 million. For the BBC, Owen Gleiberman wrote, " Magic in the Moonlight is Allen's most gratifyingly airy concoction in a while, but it's also a comedy that insists, in the end, on making an overly rational case for the power of the irrational."

It's really cool to work with a director who's done so much, because he knows exactly what he wants. The fact that he does one shot for an entire scene-[and] this could be a scene with eight people and one to two takes-it gives you a level of confidence... he's very empowering.

On March 11, 2014, Allen's musical Bullets over Broadway opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre. It was directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman and starred Zach Braff, Nick Cordero, and Betsy Wolfe. The production received mixed reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter writing, "this frothy show does provide dazzling art direction and performances, as well as effervescent ensemble numbers." Allen received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. The show received six Tony nominations.

In July and August 2014, Allen filmed the mystery drama Irrational Man in Newport, Rhode Island, with Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey and Jamie Blackley. Allen said that this film, as well as the next three he had planned, had the financing and full support of Sony Pictures Classics. Jonathan Romney of Film Comment gave the film a mixed review, praising Stone's performance but calling the film "disconcertingly impersonal-all the more so as it overtly carries certain traditional marks of his patented brand, being a light-highbrow comedy of manners, peppered with bookish in-jokes."

2015-present

Allen at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival

On January 14, 2015, Amazon Studios announced a full-season order for a half-hour Amazon Prime Instant Video series that Allen would write and direct, marking the first time he has developed a television show. Allen said of the series, "I don't know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I'm not sure where to begin. My guess is that Roy Price [the head of Amazon Studios] will regret this." At the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Allen said of his upcoming Amazon show: "It was a catastrophic mistake. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm floundering. I expect this to be a cosmic embarrassment." On September 30, 2016, Amazon Video debuted Allen's first television series production, Crisis in Six Scenes. The series is a comedy set during the 1960s. It focuses on the life of a suburban family after a surprise visitor creates chaos among them. It stars Allen, Elaine May, and Miley Cyrus, with the latter playing a radical hippie fugitive who sells marijuana.

Allen's next film, Café Society, starred an ensemble cast, including Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, and Blake Lively. Bruce Willis was set to co-star, but was replaced by Steve Carell during filming. The film is distributed by Amazon Studios, and opened the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 2016, the third time Allen has opened the festival. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film a positive review, writing, "The film looks ravishing, with shots of New York which recall images in Allen's great work, Manhattan, but however wonderfully composed, there is something almost touristy in both them, and in his evocation of golden age Tinseltown, like his homages to Paris and Rome. Allen brings it all together in his closing moments which conjure something unexpectedly melancholy and shrewdly judged. It has entertainment and charm."

Emma Stone, Allen, and Parker Posey at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015

In September 2016 Allen started filming the drama film Wonder Wheel, set in the 1950s in Coney Island, and starring Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, Juno Temple, and Jim Belushi. The film served as the closing night selection at the 55th New York Film Festival on October 15, 2017, and was theatrically released on December 1, 2017, as the first movie self-distributed to theaters by Amazon Studios. The film received mixed reviews, with critics praising Winslet's leading performance. Owen Gleiberman of wrote, " Wonder Wheel isn't a comedy-on the contrary, it often feels like the most earnest kitchen-sink drama that Clifford Odets never wrote. It may or may not turn out to be an awards picture, but it's a good night out, and that's not nothing." In 2017, Allen received a standing ovation when he made a rare public appearance at the 45th Annual Life Achievement Tribute award ceremony for Diane Keaton. Before presenting her with the award he spoke about their longtime collaboration and friendship, saying, "From the minute I met her, she was a great, great inspiration to me. Much of what I have accomplished in my life I owe for sure to her".

Allen returned to filming in New York City with the romantic film A Rainy Day in New York, starring Timothée Chalamet, Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Liev Schreiber and Rebecca Hall. The production in New York began in September 2017. During the film's release, Chalamet, Gomez, and Hall announced, in the light of the Me Too movement, that they would donate their salaries to various charities. The film received mixed reviews but earned praise for its performances. In February 2019 it was announced that Amazon Studios had dropped A Rainy Day in New York and would no longer finance, produce, or distribute films with Allen. He filed a lawsuit for $68 million, alleging Amazon gave "vague reasons" to terminate the contract, dropped the film over "a 25-year old, baseless allegation", and did not make payments. The case was later settled and dismissed. It was released throughout Europe beginning in July 2019, receiving mixed reviews and grossing $20 million. After over a year's delay, the film was released in the U.S. on October 9, 2020, by MPI Media Group and Signature Entertainment.

In May 2019, it was announced that Allen's next film would be titled Rifkin's Festival, and Variety magazine confirmed that its cast would include Christoph Waltz, Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel, Gina Gershon, Sergi López, and Wallace Shawn, and that it would be produced by Gravier Productions. The film was produced with Mediapro, an independent Spanish TV-film company. Rifkin's Festival completed filming in October 2019. On September 18, 2020, it premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. It received mixed reviews, though Jessica Kiang of The New York Times called it "to the ravenous captive, like finding an unexpected stash of dessert".

On March 2, 2020, it was announced that after shopping the book from publishers it was decided that Grand Central Publishing would release Allen's autobiography, Apropos of Nothing, on April 7, 2020, According to the publisher, the book is a "comprehensive account of Allen's life, both personal and professional, and describes his work in films, theater, television, nightclubs, and print...Allen also writes of his relationships with family, friends, and the loves of his life." The decision to publish the book was criticized by Dylan and Ronan Farrow, the latter of whom cut ties with the publisher. The announcement also incited criticism from employees of the publishers. On March 6, the publisher announced that it had canceled the book's release, saying in part, "The decision to cancel Mr. Allen's book was a difficult one." Hachette's decision also drew criticism from novelist Stephen King, Executive director of PEN America Suzanne Nossel, and others. On March 6, 2020, Manuel Carcassonne of Hachette's French branch, the publishing company Stock, announced it would publish the book if Allen permitted it. On March 23, 2020, Arcade published the memoir.

In June 2020, Allen appeared on Alec Baldwin's podcast Here's the Thing and talked about his career as a standup comedian, comedy writer, and filmmaker, and his life during the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2022, Allen suggested that he might retire from filmmaking after the release of his next film. In an interview with La Vanguardia, Allen said, "My idea, in principle, is not to make more movies and focus on writing." Allen's publicist later said, "Woody Allen never said he was retiring, nor did he say he was writing another novel. He said he was thinking about not making films, as making films that go straight or very quickly to streaming platforms is not so enjoyable for him, as he is a great lover of the cinema experience. Currently, he has no intention of retiring and is very excited to be in Paris shooting his new movie, which will be the 50th."

Allen has made 50 feature films to date, with his latest film, Coup de chance (2023), a domestic thriller set in Paris. The film is Allen's first French-language film. It premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival to positive reviews. Chris Vognar of Rolling Stone called it "a pretty slight and minor film, but for an 87-year-old American working in a second language, it can't help but seem impressive". Owen Gleiberman of called it "his best since Blue Jasmine".

While best known for his films, Allen has also had a successful theater career, starting as early as 1960, when he wrote sketches for the revue . His first great success was Don't Drink the Water, which opened in 1968 and ran for 598 performances on Broadway. His success continued with Play It Again, Sam, which opened in 1969, starring Allen and Diane Keaton. The show played for 453 performances and was nominated for three Tony Awards, although none of the nominations were for Allen's writing or acting.

In the 1970s, Allen wrote a number of one-act plays, such as and , which were published in his 1975 collection Without Feathers. In 1981, Allen's play The Floating Light Bulb opened on Broadway. It was a critical success and a commercial flop. Despite two Tony Award nominations, a Tony win for the acting of Brian Backer (who won the 1981 Theater World Award and a Drama Desk Award for his work), the play only ran for 62 performances. After a long hiatus from the stage, Allen returned to theater in 1995 with the one-act Central Park West, an installment in an evening of theater, Death Defying Acts, that also included new work by David Mamet and Elaine May.

For the next few years, Allen had no direct involvement with the stage, but productions of his work were staged. God was staged at The Bank of Brazil Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro, and theatrical adaptations of Allen's films Bullets Over Broadway and September were produced in Italy and France, respectively, without Allen's involvement. In 2003, Allen finally returned to the stage with Writer's Block, an evening of two one-acts- Old Saybrook and Riverside Drive-that played Off-Broadway. The production marked his stage-directing debut and sold out the entire run.

In 2004, Allen's first full-length play since 1981, A Second Hand Memory, was directed by Allen and enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway. In June 2007 it was announced that Allen would make two more creative debuts in the theater, directing a work he did not write and an opera-a reinterpretation of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi for the Los Angeles Opera-which debuted at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on September 6, 2008. Of his direction of the opera, Allen said, "I have no idea what I'm doing." His production of the opera opened the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in June 2009.

In October 2011, Allen's one-act play Honeymoon Motel premiered as one in a series of one-act plays on Broadway titled Relatively Speaking. Also contributing to the series were Elaine May and Ethan Coen; John Turturro directed.

It was announced in February 2012 that Allen would adapt Bullets over Broadway into a Broadway musical. It ran from April 10 to August 24, 2014. The cast included Zach Braff, Nick Cordero and Betsy Wolfe. The show was directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, known for directing the stage and film productions of Mel Brooks's The Producers. The show drew mixed reviews from critics but received six Tony Award nominations, including one for Allen for Best Book of a Musical.

Allen with Jerry Zigmont and Simon Wettenhall performing at Vienne Jazz Festival, Vienne, France, September 2003

Allen is a passionate fan of jazz, which appears often in the soundtracks to his films. He began playing clarinet as a child and took his stage name from clarinetist Woody Herman. He has performed publicly at least since the late 1960s, including with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on the soundtrack of Sleeper.

Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band have been playing each Monday evening at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan for many years specializing in New Orleans jazz from the early 20th century. He plays songs by Sidney Bechet, George Lewis, Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone, and Louis Armstrong. The documentary film Wild Man Blues (directed by Barbara Kopple) chronicles a 1996 European tour by Allen and his band, as well as his relationship with Previn. The band released the albums The Bunk Project (1993) and the soundtrack of Wild Man Blues (1997). In 2005, Allen, Eddy Davis and Conal Fowkes released the trio album Woody With Strings. In a 2011 review of a concert by Allen's jazz band, critic Kirk Silsbee of the Los Angeles Times suggested that Allen should be regarded a competent musical hobbyist with a sincere appreciation for early jazz: "Allen's clarinet won't make anyone forget Sidney Bechet, Barney Bigard or Evan Christopher. His piping tone and strings of staccato notes can't approximate melodic or lyrical phrasing. Still his earnestness and the obvious regard he has for traditional jazz counts for something."

Allen and his band played at the Montreal International Jazz Festival on two consecutive nights in June 2008. For many years he wanted to make a film about the origins of jazz in New Orleans. Tentatively titled American Blues, the film would follow the different careers of Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Allen stated that the film would cost between $80 and $100 million and is therefore unlikely to be made.

Allen has said that he was enormously influenced by comedians Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Mort Sahl, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, playwright George S. Kaufman and filmmakers Ernst Lubitsch and Ingmar Bergman.

Directors who admire Allen's work include Quentin Tarantino, who called him "one of the greatest screenwriters of all time", as well as Martin Scorsese, who said in Woody Allen: A Documentary, "Woody's sensibilities of New York City is one of the reasons why I love his work, but they are extremely foreign to me. It's not another world; it's another planet".[This quote needs a citation ] Stanley Donen stated he liked Allen's films, Spike Lee has called Allen a "great, great filmmaker" and Pedro Almodóvar has said he admires Allen's work. In 2012, directors Mike Leigh, Asghar Farhadi, and Martin McDonagh respectively included (1987), Take the Money and Run (1969), and among their Top 10 films for Sight & Sound. Other admirers of his work include Olivia Wilde and Jason Reitman, who staged live readings of Hannah and Her Sisters and Manhattan respectively. Filmmaker Edgar Wright listed five of Allen's films (Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Play It Again, Sam, Sleeper, Annie Hall) in his list of 100 Favorite Comedy films.

Bill Hader cited Allen's mockumentary films Take the Money and Run and as the biggest inspirations of the IFC series Documentary Now!

Film critics including Roger Ebert and Barry Norman have highly praised Allen's work. In 1980, on Sneak Previews, Siskel and Ebert called Allen and Mel Brooks "the two most successful comedy directors in the world today ... America's two funniest filmmakers." Pauline Kael wrote of Allen that "his comic character is enormously appealing to people partly because he's the smart, urban guy who at the same time is intelligent, is vulnerable, and somehow by his intelligence, he triumphs".[citation needed ]

Favorite films

In 2012, Allen participated in the Sight & Sound film polls. Held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select ten films of their choice. Allen's choices, in alphabetical order, were:

In his 2020 autobiography Apropos of Nothing Allen praised Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951):

the movie of Streetcar is for me total artistic perfection... It's the most perfect confluence of script, performance, and direction I've ever seen. I agree with Richard Schickel, who calls the play perfect. The characters are so perfectly written, every nuance, every instinct, every line of dialogue is the best choice of all those available in the known universe. All the performances are sensational. Vivien Leigh is incomparable, more real and vivid than real people I know. And Marlon Brando was a living poem. He was an actor who came on the scene and changed the history of acting. The magic, the setting, New Orleans, the French Quarter, the rainy humid afternoons, the poker night. Artistic genius, no holds barred.

Film activism and preservation

In 1987, Allen joined Ginger Rogers, Sydney Pollack, and Miloš Forman at a Senate Judiciary committee hearing in Washington, D.C., where they each gave testimony against Ted Turner's and other companies' colorizing films without the artists' consent. Only one senator, Patrick Leahy, was present for the testimony. Allen testified:

If directors had their way, we would not let our films be tampered with in any way-broken up for commercial or shortened or colorized. But we've fought the other things without much success, and now colorization-because it's so horrible and preposterous and more acutely noticeable by audiences-is the straw that broke the camel's back...The presumption that colorizers are doing him [the director] a favor and bettering his movie is a transparent attempt to justify the mutilation of art for a few extra dollars.

Allen also spoke about his decisions to make films in black and white, such as , Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose, and . Film director John Huston appeared in a pretaped video, and Rogers read a statement by Jimmy Stewart criticizing the colorization of his film It's a Wonderful Life.

In 1990, The Film Foundation was founded as a nonprofit film preservation organization that collaborates with film studios to restore prints of old or damaged films to meet the vision of the original filmmaker. Allen was part of the founding and sat on the foundation's original board of directors alongside Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg.

Filmography

Theatrical works

In addition to directing, writing, and acting in films, Allen has written and performed in a number of Broadway theater productions.

Bibliography

Discography

Woody Allen (Colpix Records, 1964)

Woody Allen Vol. 2 (Colpix Records, 1965)

The Third Woody Allen Album (Capitol Records, 1968)

The Nightclub Years 1964-1968 (United Artists Records, 1972)

Standup Comic (Casablanca Records, 1978)

Wild Man Blues (RCA Victor, 1998)

Woody With Strings (New York Jazz Records, 2005)

Awards and honors

Over his more than 50-year film career, Allen has received many award nominations. He holds the record for most Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay, with 16 nominations and three wins ( Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Midnight in Paris). Allen has been nominated for Best Director seven times and won for Annie Hall. Three of Allen's films have been nominated for Academy Award for Best Picture, Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Midnight in Paris.

Allen shuns award ceremonies, citing their subjectivity. His first and only appearance at the Academy Awards was at the 2002 Oscars, where he received a standing ovation. As a New York icon, he had been asked by the Academy to introduce a film montage of clips of New York City in the movies that Nora Ephron compiled to honor the city after the 9/11 attacks. Two of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Allen has received numerous honors, including an Honorary Golden Palm from the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 and a Career Golden Lion from the Venice International Film Festival in 1995. He also received a BAFTA Fellowship in 1997, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America and a Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2014. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2010. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America named his screenplay for Annie Hall first on its list of the "101 Funniest Screenplays". In 2011, PBS televised the film biography Woody Allen: A Documentary on its series American Masters.

In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen the third-greatest comedian.

Personal life

Allen has been married three times: to Harlene Rosen from 1956 to 1959, Louise Lasser from 1966 to 1970, and Soon-Yi Previn since 1997. He also had a 12-year relationship with actress Mia Farrow and relationships with Stacey Nelkin and Diane Keaton.

Early marriages and relationships

In 1956, Allen married Harlene Rosen. He was 20 and she was 17. The marriage lasted until 1959. Rosen, whom Allen called "the Dread Mrs. Allen" in his standup act, sued him for defamation as a result of comments he made during a television appearance shortly after their divorce. In his mid-1960s album Standup Comic, Allen said that Rosen had sued him because of a joke he made in an interview. Rosen had been sexually assaulted outside her apartment. According to Allen, the newspapers reported that she had been "violated". In the interview, Allen said, "Knowing my ex-wife, it probably wasn't a moving violation." In an interview on The Dick Cavett Show, Allen repeated his comments and said he had been sued for "$1 million".

In 1966, Allen married Louise Lasser. They divorced in 1970. Lasser provided voice dubbing in Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? and appeared in three of his other films: Take the Money and Run, , and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). She also appeared briefly in Stardust Memories.

According to the Los Angeles Times, was based on Allen's romantic relationship with actress Stacey Nelkin. Her bit part in ended up on the cutting room floor, and their relationship, never publicly acknowledged by Allen, reportedly began when she was 17 and a student at Stuyvesant High School in New York. In December 2018 The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Babi Christina Engelhardt, who said she had an eight-year affair with Allen that began in 1976 when she was 17 years old (they met when she was 16), and that she believes the character of Tracy in Manhattan is a composite of any number of Allen's presumed other real-life young paramours from that period, not necessarily Nelkin or Engelhardt. When asked, Allen declined to comment.

Diane Keaton

Allen with Diane Keaton and Jerry Lacy in the play Play It Again, Sam

In 1968, Allen cast Diane Keaton in his Broadway show Play It Again, Sam. During the run she and Allen became romantically involved. Although they broke up after a year, she continued to star in his films, including as a futuristic poet and Love and Death as a composite character based on the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. was very important in Allen's and Keaton's careers. It is said that the role was written for her, as Keaton's birth name was Diane Hall. She then starred in as a poet, followed by . In 1987, she had a cameo as a nightclub singer in , and she was chosen to replace Mia Farrow in Manhattan Murder Mystery after Allen and Farrow began having problems with their relationship. In total Keaton has starred in eight of Allen's films. As of 2018 Keaton and Allen remain close friends. In a rare public appearance, Allen presented Keaton with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017.

Allen and Mia Farrow met in 1979 and began a relationship in 1980; Farrow starred in 13 of Allen's films from 1982 to 1992. Throughout the relationship they lived in separate apartments on opposite sides of Central Park in Manhattan. Farrow had seven children when they met: three biological sons from her marriage to composer André Previn, three adopted girls (two Vietnamese and one South Korean, Soon-Yi Previn), and an adopted South Korean boy, Moses Farrow.

In 1984, she and Allen tried to conceive a child together; Allen agreed to this on the understanding that he need not be involved in the child's care. When the effort failed, Farrow adopted a baby girl, Dylan Farrow, in July 1985. Allen was not involved in the adoption, but when Dylan arrived he assumed a parental role toward her and began spending more time in Farrow's home. On December 19, 1987, Farrow gave birth to their son Satchel Ronan O'Sullivan Farrow. According to Allen, his intimate relationship with Mia Farrow ceased completely after Satchel's birth and he was asked to return her apartment key; they maintained a working relationship when they filmed a movie, and he regularly visited Moses, Dylan and Satchel, but he and Mia were only "social companions on those occasions where there'd be a dinner, an event, but after the event she'd go home and I'd go home." In 1991, Farrow wanted to adopt another child. According to a 1993 custody hearing, Allen told her he would not object to another adoption so long as she would agree to his adoption of Dylan and Moses; that adoption was finalized in December 1991. Eric Lax, Allen's biographer, wrote in The New York Times that Allen was "there before they [the children] wake up in the morning, he sees them during the day and he helps put them to bed at night".

Soon-Yi Previn

Allen and Soon-Yi Previn in Venice

In 1977, Mia Farrow and André Previn adopted Soon-Yi Previn from Seoul, South Korea. She had been abandoned. The Seoul Family Court established a Family Census Register (legal birth document) on her behalf on December 28, 1976, with a presumptive birth date of October 8, 1970; according to Maureen Orth, a bone scan in the U.S. estimated that she was between five and seven years old. According to Previn, her first friendly interaction with Allen took place when she was injured playing soccer during 11th grade and Allen offered to transport her to school. After her injury, she began attending New York Knicks basketball games with Allen in 1990. They attended more games and by 1991 had become closer. In September 1991, she began studies at Drew University in New Jersey.

In January 1992, Farrow found nude photographs of Previn in Allen's home. Allen, then 56, told Farrow that he had taken the photos the day before, approximately two weeks after he first had sex with Previn. Both Farrow and Allen contacted lawyers shortly after the photographs were discovered. Previn was asked to leave summer camp because she was spending too much time taking calls from a "Mr. Simon", who turned out to be Allen.

Soon-Yi Previn and Allen, 2009

In an August 1992 interview with Time Magazine Allen said, "I am not Soon-Yi's father or stepfather", adding, "I've never even lived with Mia. I've never in my entire life slept at Mia's apartment, and I never even used to go over there until my children came along seven years ago. I never had any family dinners over there. I was not a father to her adopted kids in any sense of the word." Adding that Soon-Yi never treated him as a father figure and that he rarely spoke to her before their romantic relationship, Allen seemed to see few or no problems with their relationship.

On August 17, 1992, Allen issued a statement saying that he was in love with Previn. Their relationship became public and "erupted into tabloid headlines and late-night monologues in August 1992."

Allen and Previn were married in Venice, Italy, on December 23, 1997. They have adopted two children, and live in the Carnegie Hill section of Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Sexual abuse allegation

According to court testimony, on August 4, 1992, Allen visited the children at Mia Farrow's home in Bridgewater, Connecticut, while she was shopping with a friend. The next day, that friend's babysitter told her employer that she had seen that "Dylan was sitting on the sofa, and Woody was kneeling on the floor, facing her, with his head in her lap". When Farrow asked Dylan about it, Dylan allegedly said that Allen had touched Dylan's "private part" while they were alone together in the attic. Allen strongly denied the allegation, calling it "an unconscionable and gruesomely damaging manipulation of innocent children for vindictive and self-serving motives". He then began proceedings in New York Supreme Court for sole custody of his and Farrow's son Satchel, as well as Dylan and Moses, their two adopted children. In March 1993, a six-month investigation by the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of Yale-New Haven Hospital concluded that Dylan had not been sexually abused.

In June 1993, Judge Elliott Wilk rejected Allen's bid for custody and rejected the allegation of sexual abuse. Wilk said he was less certain than the Yale-New Haven team that there was conclusive evidence that there was no sexual abuse and called Allen's conduct with Dylan "grossly inappropriate", although not sexual. In September 1993, the state prosecutor announced that despite having "probable cause", he would not pursue charges in order "to avoid the unjustifiable risk of exposing a child to the rigors and uncertainties of a questionable prosecution". In October 1993 the New York Child Welfare Agency of the State Department of Social Services closed a 14-month investigation and concluded there was not credible evidence of abuse or maltreatment, and the allegation was unfounded.

In 2014, when Allen received a Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement, the issue returned to the forefront of media attention, with Mia Farrow and Ronan Farrow making disparaging remarks about Allen on Twitter. On February 1, 2014, New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, with Dylan's permission, published a column that included excerpts from a letter Dylan had written to Kristof restating the allegation against Allen, and called out fellow actors who have continued to work in his films. Allen responded to the allegation in an open letter, also in The New York Times, strongly denying it. "Of course, I did not molest Dylan...No one wants to discourage abuse victims from speaking out, but one must bear in mind that sometimes there are people who are falsely accused and that is also a terribly destructive thing", he wrote.

In 2018, Moses Farrow (Mia Farrow's and Allen's adopted son who was present at her Bridgewater house during Allen's visit) published a blog post called "A Son Speaks Out." In the post, Moses strenuously denied the abuse allegations, writing, "given the incredibly inaccurate and misleading attacks on my father, Woody Allen, I feel that I can no longer stay silent as he continues to be condemned for a crime he did not commit." He also recounted a series of instances of alleged physical abuse at the hands of Mia Farrow: "It pains me to recall instances in which I witnessed siblings, some blind or physically disabled, dragged down a flight of stairs to be thrown into a bedroom or a closet, then having the door locked from the outside. [Mia] even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression".

Works about Allen

From 1976 to 1984 Stuart Hample wrote and drew Inside Woody Allen, a comic strip based on Allen's film persona.

The 1997 documentary Wild Man Blues, directed by Barbara Kopple, focuses on Allen, and other documentaries featuring Allen include the 2002 cable television documentary Woody Allen: A Life in Film, directed by film critic Richard Schickel, which interlaces interviews of Allen with clips of his films, and the 1986 short film , in which Allen is interviewed by French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard.

Monument to Woody Allen, Oviedo, Spain

In 2003, a life-size bronze statue of Allen was installed in Oviedo, Spain. He had visited the city the previous year to accept a Prince of Asturias Award.

In 2011 the PBS series American Masters co-produced the documentary Woody Allen: A Documentary, directed by Robert B. Weide. New interviews provide insight and backstory with Diane Keaton, Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, Dianne Wiest, Larry David, Chris Rock, Martin Scorsese, Dick Cavett, and Leonard Maltin, among others.

Eric Lax wrote the book Woody Allen: A Biography.

In 2015 David Evanier published Woody: The Biography, which was billed as the first new biography of Allen in over a decade.

In early March 2020, Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, announced that it would publish Allen's memoir, Apropos of Nothing, on April 7, 2020. Days later, after employee walkouts, parent company Hachette announced that the title was canceled and rights had reverted to Allen. On March 23, 2020, Skyhorse Publishing announced that it had acquired and released Apropos of Nothing through its Arcade imprint.

In February 2021, HBO released Kirby Dick's and Amy Ziering's four-part documentary Allen v. Farrow, which explores the sexual abuse allegations against Allen. The series drew largely positive reviews from critics. Lorraine Ali of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it "makes a compelling argument that Allen got away with the unthinkable thanks to his fame, money, and revered standing in the world of film-and that a little girl never received justice." Rachel Brodsky wrote in The Independent that the "documentary will sound the death knell for Woody Allen's career." Hadley Freeman in The Guardian wrote that the series "sets itself up as an investigation but much more resembles PR, as biased and partial as a political candidate's advert vilifying an opponent in election season." A statement on behalf of Allen and Previn denounced the documentary as "a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods" and said that they were approached two months before it was aired on HBO and "given only a matter of days 'to respond.' Of course, they declined to do so." The filmmakers said they gave Allen and Previn two weeks to comment, which is "more than ample time by journalistic standards."

References

1. ^ Newton, Michael (January 13, 2012). "Woody Allen: cinema's great experimentalist". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on January 19, 2018. In the 1970s, Allen looked irreverent, hip, a part of the New Hollywood generation. In an age of 'auteurs', he was the auteur personified, the writer, director and star of his films, active in the editing, choosing the soundtrack, initiating the projects

2. ^ Deb, Sopan; Leiderman, Deborah; Bahr, Sarah (February 22, 2021). "Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A Timeline". The New York Times.

3. ^ Newman, Andy; Kilgannon, Corey (June 5, 2002). "Curse of the Jaded Audience: Woody Allen, in Art and Life". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 18, 2009. 'I think he's slacked off the last few movies', said Norman Brown, 70, a retired draftsman from Mr. Allen's old neighborhood, Midwood, Brooklyn, who said he had seen nearly all of Mr. Allen's 33 films.

4. "Woody Allen on Life, Films and Whatever Works". National Public Radio. June 15, 2009.

5. Kelley, Ken (July 1, 1976). "A Conversation with the Real Woody Allen (or Someone Just like Him)". Rolling Stone. pp. 34-40.

6. ^ Allen, Woody (October 24, 2004). "I Appreciate George S. Kaufman". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 7, 2005.

7. ^ "Woody Allen: Rabbit Running". Time. July 7, 1972. pp. 5-6. I never had a teacher who made the least impression on me. If you ask me who are my heroes, the answer is simple and truthful: George S. Kaufman and the Marx Brothers.

8. ^ Scanzi, Andrea (2002). "Man on the moon, interview with comedian Daniele Luttazzi". Il mucchio selvaggio (in Italian).

9. "Annie Hall Interview with Diane Keaton by Katie Couric" on YouTube, video interview, 2 min.

10. ^ "'Death Defying Acts' Falls Short of Exhilarating". The Christian Science Monitor. March 10, 1995.

11. ^ Matloff, Jason (February 2006). "Woody Allen's European Vacation". . Vol. 19, no. 5. pp. 98-101. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. I think it turned out to be the best film I've ever made.

12. ^ Isherwood, Charles (October 10, 2011). "'Relatively Speaking' at Brooks Atkinson Theater - Review". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 27, 2011.

13. Bailey, Cameron (undated). ^ "Fading Gigolo" Archived May 9, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. Toronto International Film Festival. Retrieved June 18, 2015.

14. ^ Marshall, Alex (May 9, 2019). "Amazon Dropped Woody Allen's Latest Film. Europe Has Picked It Up". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 9, 2019.

15. ^ Kiang, Jessica (September 18, 2020). "'Rifkin's Festival' Review: Woody Allen Travels to Movie Memory Lane". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020.

16. ^ Relatively Speaking Archived November 9, 2013, at the Wayback Machine relativelyspeakingbroadway.com. Retrieved January 4, 2012

17. ^ "Woody Allen en concert ce lundi à Monaco" [Woody Allen in concert this Monday in Monaco]. Monaco-Matin (in French). December 28, 2014. Archived from the original on October 16, 2015.

18. ^ Brownfield, Paul (December 25, 1998). "Our take on Jon Stewart in 1998: 'He's practically made a career out of almost hosting other people's talk shows'". Los Angeles Times.

19. Lidz, Franz; Rushin, Steve (January 30, 2000). "Here A Comic Genius, There A Comic Genius". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011.

20. ^ "'20th Century Women' Director Mike Mills On Honing Material From His Own Life: "I Don't Want To Make A Memoir"". Deadline Hollywood. January 4, 2017.

21. ^ Siskel, Gene; Ebert, Roger (May 1, 1980). "Take 2: Who's Funnier: Mel Brooks or Woody Allen?". Sneak Previews. Season 4. Chicago. PBS.

22. ^ Mumford, Gwilym (January 30, 2018). "Diane Keaton: 'Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him'". The Guardian - via www.theguardian.com.

23. ^ Orth, Maureen (August 5, 2008). "Mia's Story". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on February 21, 2009.

24. ^ "A history of Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn describing their relationship, from "the heart wants what it wants" to "I was paternal"". Salon. July 30, 2015.

25. ^ Wilk, Elliot J. (July 6, 1993), Custody Case Ruling, Supreme Court: New York County, The evidence suggests that it is unlikely that he could be successfully prosecuted for sexual abuse. I am less certain, however, than is the Yale-New Haven team, that the evidence proves conclusively that there was no sexual abuse.

26. ^ Wilk, Elliot J. (June 7, 1993), Custody Case Ruling, Supreme Court: New York County, I did not see it as sexual, but I saw it as inappropriately intense because it excluded everybody else

27. ^ Pulver, Andrew (January 13, 2014). "Woody Allen Golden Globe greeted with derision by Mia and Ronan Farrow". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.

28. ^ Holson, Laura M. (May 24, 2018). "Moses Farrow Defends Woody Allen, and His Family Pushes Back". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 24, 2018.

29. ^ Erickson, Amanda (January 22, 2018). "'An abuser and pervert': Women in Spain want a statue of Woody Allen removed".

30. ^ Sperling, Nicole (February 5, 2021). "Filmmakers Look at Woody Allen Abuse Allegations in Four-Part Series". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021.

31. ^ Stern, Marlow (March 9, 2021). "'Allen v. Farrow' Filmmakers Call Out Woody Allen: 'What Are You Afraid Of?'". The Daily Beast.

Works cited

"Woody Allen on Life, Films and Whatever Works". National Public Radio. June 15, 2009.

Allen, Woody (2020). Apropos of Nothing (1st ed.). Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-951627-34-8. OCLC 1146226397.

Bailey, Peter J. (2001). The Reluctant Film Art of Woody Allen. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813190419.

Baxter, John (1998). Woody Allen: A Biography. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0786708079.

Björkman, Stig (1993). Woody Allen on Woody Allen. Faber & Faber.

Evanier, David (2015). Woody: The Biography. New York City: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1250047267.

Galef, David (February 21, 2003). "Getting Even: Literary Posterity and the Case for Woody Allen". South Atlantic Review. 64 (2): 146-160. doi:10.2307/3201987. JSTOR 3201987.

Gross, Terry (January 27, 2012). "Woody Allen: Blending Real Life With Fiction". . Archived from the original on September 11, 2012.

Groteke, Kristi (1994). Mia & Woody: Love and Betrayal. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 9780786700660. OCLC 1036704501. After Alison Stickland left Frog Hollow on the afternoon of August 4, she told Casey in passing, "I had seen something at Mia's that was bothering me." What she claimed to have seen was this: In the television room that afternoon, Dylan was sitting on the sofa, and Woody was kneeling on the floor, facing her, with his head in her lap. Casey phoned Mia the next day, August 5, and, in passing, related Alison's remark.

Kakutani, Michiko (1995). "Woody Allen, The Art of Humor No. 1". The Paris Review. Fall 1995 (136).

Meade, Marion (2000). The unruly life of Woody Allen: a biography. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-83374-3. OCLC 42291110.

Norwood, Stephen Harlan; Pollack, Eunice G. (2008). Encyclopedia of American Jewish history - Stephen Harlan Norwood, Eunice G. Pollack - Google Books. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781851096381.

External links

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Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many accolades, including the most nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, with 16.

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Fun Panel

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Budget Compromising

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Santa Barbara International Film Festival is wonderful