Portrait of Woody Allen
78th Birthday
Woody Allen
Film director
Born: December 1, 1935 , The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States
24 Oscar nominations (winning 4),
13 Golden Globe nominations (winning 2),
22 BAFTA nominations (winning 9).
Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Nettie a bookkeeper at her family’s delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg, a jewelry engraver and waiter. His family was Ashkenazi Jewish; his grandparents immigrated from Russia and Austria, and spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German. Both parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Allen has a sister, Letty, who was born in 1943; they were raised in Midwood, Brooklyn.
To raise money he wrote jokes (or “gags”) for agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. 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 began to call himself Woody Allen. At the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen.