A Walk With Fred Allen

Fred Allen complained.

He griped about agencies, networks, and even his audiences. Over and over again to any reporter who would listen.

Fred Allen also liked to walk. And perhaps that made him a little more reflective.

Here’s a story from the Bell Syndicate that appeared in newspapers on April 3, 1955, a little less than a year before Allen collapsed and died during one of his walks. He walked with columnist Margaret McManus and seems a little less bitter in her report than I’ve read elsewhere.



As He Walked Down Broadway (on Way to Dentist) He Heard Girl Tell Her Friend He Was ‘Cute’
By MARGARET McMANUS
NEW YORK—To walk a few blocks on Park Ave. with Fred Allen, on his way to the dentist, is to see a celebrity abroad in the real sense of the word.
It is difficult to mistake that deceivingly dour countenance and those unsmiling blue eyes, which look out at the world with such acid perception.
A taxi driver leans out of his cab at 57th St. and talks right in to Allen's face.
"What's my line? What's my line, Fred?" he shouts.
BOYS WANT AUTOGRAPH
Two young boys stop him for an autograph. They are disappointed because Allen is not carrying any pictures with him.
A well-dressed, middle-aged man passes, salutes and then says:
"Hi, Seagirt!"
Allen turns quickly to tip his fedora to him.
"Portland and I used to spend our summers at Seagirt, a nice little community in Jersey," he said. "He was one of our neighbors."
Two women, coming out of one of those so smart, so expensive little Park Avenue dress shops, stop abruptly in the doorway, one nudges the other.
"There's Fred Allen, Marion, look! Did you see him the night Portland was the mystery guest on 'What's My Line?' He was so cute."
'DEAD PAN' BREAKS
Even Allen's dead pan broke slightly at this description and he shook his head in some wonderment.
"I must remember to tell that to Portland," he said. "I don't think I've heard myself described as 'cute'— not recently."
Fred Allen, who replaced Steve Allen as a regular member of the "What's My Line?" panel on the CBS-TV Sunday night show, says he likes doing a panel show on television.
"It doesn't take much preparation," he explained. "You don't have to worry about getting material ahead of time. It's a comfortable living, and it leaves you time for other things."
The principal "other thing" for Mr. Allen, at the moment, is writing a book.
His "Treadmill to Oblivion," which was published recently is still a best seller. He will soon begin his autobiography.
TRACKS VAUDEVILLIANS
He is currently engaged in the research for this book, which includes tracking down old vaudevillians to recapture the real flavor of the early vaudeville days. He said he has very little time to watch television, although he is interested in the comedy shows and especially enjoys Jack Benny, George Gobel and Sid Caesar.
"There is a sameness about television shows," he said, "which is very difficult to attain. You might even say that television performs a rare service. It is showing the public how monotony actually looks."
You can also take it from Fred Allen that radio has done died.
"It is the advertisers' fault. Everything is subdued to the demands of the sponsors. They milk a medium dry, and then walk out and leave it for something better.
"All the radio equipment is still there. The hours are going on, filled with nothing, because the money has gone into television."
Born John Florence Sullivan, in Cambridge, Mass., 61 years ago, Allen attended the High School of Commerce in Boston and, for one summer, he studied at Boston University.
He began his career in show business in and around Boston, as a juggler and a monologist, going on to a vaudeville career which took him several times around the United States, and, in 1915, on a tour of Australia.
This is why today, he prefers to stay quietly at home in his mid-town apartment in Manhattan, confining his traveling to the hour's walk he and Portland usually take each night about 11 o'clock.
GREAT TRAVELER
"Portland's a great traveler," he said. "Her whole family likes to travel. She went to Europe last summer for three months with her sisters, but I stayed home. I had work to do."
In 1922, Fred Allen made his first appearance on Broadway, in "The Passing Show of 1922" at the Winter Garden Theater. It was during that show that Allen met Portland, one of the dancers. They were married in 1927.
Later he played on Broadway in "First Little Show" and "Three's a Crowd," but retired from the stage in 1932, to start his 19-year-radio career, with his famous gallery of Allen's Alley characters.
Allen finds the transition from comedian to writer actually no transition.
WIRE TO BENNY
After his good friend Jack Benny made a slight mistake in quoting Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, at the recent Emmy Awards, Allen sent him a telegram which read: "How could you possibly misquote Lincoln's Gettysburg Address? After all, you were there."
This was strictly for laughs, just to keep alive the years-old radio feud between Benny and Allen, in the spirit of Auld Lang Syne.
And all too suddenly, here was the dentist's office.
"Will this be a bad session, Mr. Allen? Any extractions?"
"Well I don't know," said Mr. Allen. "This is the dentist's department. After all I'm doing my part. I'm bringing my teeth."
(Released by The Bell Syndicate. Inc.)