Fred Allen

 

 

John Florence Sullivan was born on May 31, 1894, known as Fred Allen, was an American comedian. His absurdist topically-pointed radio program The Fred Allen Show (1932–1949) made him one of the most popular and best humorists in the Golden Age of American radio.

 

Fred Allen worked his way to radio fame from a New England upbringing that seemed to predestine his eloquent wit. 

 

His father was a amusing storyteller who worked at the craft of bookbinding. Intelligent sharp witted humor seemed to run in the family. Fred wanted to be on the stage from an early age. Getting started as a juggler, by the early 1920's Fred was on the road, and began performing in New York City.

 

His big break came when he appeared on Broadway in The Passing Show in 1922. In this show, he met the lovely Miss Portland Hoffa, who he asked to become his wife and radio partner (ala Burns and Allen). Together they developed a wonderful give and take rapport, with Portland serving up the bubbly straight lines for Fred's witty rejoinders. They got on the radio in 1932 with a show called, improbably, "The Lintit Bath Club Revue." Other shows followed quickly, including The Salad Bowl Revue (1933), The Sal Hepatica Revue (1933-34) and The Hour of Smiles (1934-35). One of the featured segments in the early years was a segment where amateurs came up to do their bit, harkening back to the days of regional vaudeville itself when Amateur Night was a staple of the local theatre.

 

Allen's comedy was almost always topical and satiric, and throughout his career he was famed for being as sharp with the quip as any live radio comedian. He wrote most of his own stuff, loved to comment on the daily foibles of the day, his sponsors, and the world of entertainment. In the New England spirit, he saw his show as something of a town hall gathering, and hit upon the name "Town Hall Tonight" as the show from 1934-39.

 

In 1939, Texaco sponsorship began, and the show was renamed in truly modern fashion, "The Fred Allen Show - Texaco Star Theater." One of his funniest and most popular regular segments, Allen's Alley, premiered on Sunday, December 6th, 1942. Allen strolled along in an imaginary neighborhood, knocking on the "doors" of various neighbors, including average-American John Doe (played by John Brown), Mrs. Nussbaum (Minerva Pious) pompous poet Falstaff Openshaw (Allan Reed), Parker Fennelly as Titus Moody("Howdy, bub"), and boisterous southern senator Beuregard Claghorn (announcer Kenny Delmar.)

 

Allen's widow, Portland Hoffa, married bandleader Joe Rines in 1959 and celebrated a second silver wedding anniversary well before her own death of natural causes in Los Angeles on Christmas Day, 1990. Allen and Hoffa are buried alongside each other in section 47 at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.