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You Are Here: Gangway :: Crew > Irwin Allen
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| Irwin Allen
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B. June 12, 1916, New York, New York
D. November 2, 1991, Santa Monica, California
JR's off-the-cuff take (because you can read the same boring old biographical information anywhere):
The Master of Disaster by the numbers: Fans of his TV series — particularly "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Lost in Space," "The Time Tunnel" and "Land of the Giants" — far outnumber fans of The Poseidon Adventure... and his seriously lousy endeavors on both the big and small screens (e.g., "Swiss Family Robinson," Flood!, Fire!, The Swarm, et al.) far outnumber his commercial and critical successes. Oh, wait, did he ever have any critical successes? Well, professional critics seemed to like The Towering Inferno much more than they did TPA (but who listens to professional critics?). ... Colleagues either loved him or hated him. Ernie Borgnine wrote: "He was an intense, active man with wiry hair and absolutely no pretension. ... He was also very, very considerate of his actors. ... Irwin was particularly generous to me." Producer John Calley (as recounted by Morey Stettner) remembers a "big ego." TV writer Allen Cole refers to his former "Code Red" boss repeatedly as "The Towering Toupee" (and much, much worse). while author Paul Mohamed alludes to "Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea" star Richard Basehart's "dislike" of the producer. And if Ellery Klass isn't so blunt, it's clear Klass (like many others) was thoroughly intimidated. ... Got the go-ahead to launch a movie-themed amusement park near the Queen Mary, which never got off the ground (or out of port). ... Best buddies with Groucho Marx, who quietly invested big bucks in Allen's production company. ... Called "Iry" by his friends. ... Married frequent bit player Sheila Mathews after Inferno wrapped. Was planning to make an all-star version of Pinocchio when he died of a heart attack.
Filmography and TVography:
Coming!
    
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| 60 Stars Sought for Circus Movie |
| INS, June 27, 1957. "What magic young Producer-Director-Writer Irwin Allen used in getting top star names for even the smallest toles n 'The Story of Mankind' is his secret. But get them he did. Now, in 60 days, he starts an even bigger spectacle, 'The Big Circus,' to be made in Todd-AO and technicolor. ..." |
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| ABC Captures Top Honors In Worst-Of-Season Shows |
| New York Times, September 17, 1975. "'Irwin Allen's Swiss Family Robinson' offers shipwrecked life with Karl and Lotte and the kids on a studio set that would have embarrassed 'Gilligan's Island.' The TV series is less interested in the Johann Wyss novel than in the special disaster effects that producer Allen used to make money successes out of 'The Poseidon Adventure' and 'The Towering Inferno.' ..." |
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| 20th-Fox to Build Disney-Type Park |
| AP, March 14, 1974. "City councimen have given initial approval to an offer by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. to build a $400 million recreational complex 'that will rival Disneyland in size' on a site near the Queen Mary in Long Beach Harbor. ... The project would be developed on a 475-acre landfill site. [Lewis Wolf, president of the 20th Century-Fox Realty & Development division of Fox] said the project would be headed by Irwin Allen, producer of the motion picture 'Poseidon Adventure,' which was filmed aboard the Queen Mary. Allen said the project could be given a motion picture theme by including such features as a cafe modeled on the one in the Humphrey Bogart movie 'Casablanca' and a bookstore resembling the one in 'Peyton Place.' ..." |
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| Avalon Signs Up |
| Louella Parsons, January 13, 1961. "Before I went to Las Vegas, Bob Goldstein told me that Frankie Avalon had been sigend for 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.' ... He'll have to commute from Las Vegas because the movie starts with Irwin Allen at the helm Jan. 23. ..." |
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