Wants To Achieve Immortality... By Not Dying!Woody Allen is not only a short story writer, director, screen writer, and actor, he is also considered a thinker, scholar and a philospher.
He writes and directs films that play heavily on literature, New York City, and European culture. He is the most frequently nominated person at the Academy Awards for best original screenplay and has been nominated for best director numerous times. His style never lacks a realistic sense of humor that is often self-deprecating.
Allen started his career as a stand-up comedian in 1960 in New York City, where he became popular in nightclubs and on television.
His first screenplay production was What's New, Pussycat in 1965. The experience was a disappointment because the studio altered his script, changing it completely from its original version. As a result of the defeat, he began directing his own films. His effort was Take the Money and Run (1969). He then directed Bananas, Everything you Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death-- a series of slapstick humor comedies.
Allen has won the Cesar Award for Best Foreign Film twice; once for Manhattan (1980), and the second for The Purple Rose of Cairo (1986). In the 1990s his film making tone turned from somber and philosophical to light and silly with movies like Everyone Says I Love You and Mighty Aphrodite.
Until 1992, Allen was married to actress Mia Farrow. Farrow discovered Allen's affair with her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn who was 25 years his junior. Allen soon divorced Farrow and began a new plot line of films about couples falling apart because of a younger love interest. Husbands and Wives was released during this time.
His films tend to be more popular in Europe, where he has a large fan base, than in America. He continues to produce about one per year. He is a talented clarinetist and often plays publicly with regular appearances in New York with his New Orleans Jazz Band. | 
