Dave Allen (comedian)

Dave Allen ( real name David Tynan O'Mahony, * July 6, 1936 in Dublin, † 10 March 2005 in London) was an Irish comedian.

He was known in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, thanks to repeats of his shows on public television and then in the United States. After a four year hiatus on television in 1986 saw his career in 1990 a comeback. Some programs were also broadcast in Germany by the WDR and in Switzerland, so that even in these countries formed a small fan base.

Typical of Allen's shows was his relaxed style: He sat on the stage on a bar stool, occasionally sipping on a glass. The people he was thinking it contained whiskey, in deed and in truth, it was merely ginger ale with ice. In his previous shows he smoked this too. Between his monologues he played him extremely carefully crafted skits one.

Allen went through a too rigid in his view, Catholic education, which he later explained his aversion to all things religious. One of his legendary witty sayings is: "I 'm an atheist, thank God! " In his shows he regularly ridiculed religious rites and authority with which he repeatedly drew the ire of conservative forces in coming. 1977 established the Irish state television RTÉ a de facto boycott Allen after one of his sketches of played by himself pope and his cardinals showed that danced on the steps of St. Peter's in the style of a Parisian striptease revue.

In the shows from 1990 beyond his now extremely rude language led to violent controversies that attended in January 1990 even for a debate in the House. Nevertheless describe friends and colleagues such as vaudeville star Sophie Tucker him. Than affable, amiable people, surrounded by charismatic charm and a serene melancholy

The rest of his subjects were gripped from the life scenes, such as the queue at the post office counter, the announcements on the plane, the express checkout at the grocery store, but also the peculiarities of the English language, etc.

His shows always ended Allen by raising his glass and his audience zuprostete with the words: "Goodnight, thank you and be your God with you," a legendary final word that marked his amiable style.

Allen crawled several daily newspapers and took notes for ideas, which he developed in his shows. His style and technique have had a major influence on many young comedians in the UK.

Biography

Dave Allen was born on July 6, 1936 as David O'Mahoney in Firhouse in the then Irish County Dublin, the son of Cully Tynan O'Mahoney, conductive editor of the Irish Times, and an English mother. He graduated from the secondary schools of Newbridge and Terenure, and the Catholic University School, she left with 16 and entered as a copy boy ( errand boy ) into the Drogheda Argus. At 19 he went to London, was doing there several odd jobs and was an animator at Butlin 's Holiday Camp in Skegness, where the British jazz trumpeter and writer John Chilton occurred. He then joined, initially together with Al Page, whom he had met at Butlin 's on in strip clubs and during the next four years as an entertainer in nightclubs, theaters and working men's clubs. If he barely had engagements each, he worked in a department store in Sheffield and also as representatives from house to house for vestibules.

He changed on the advice of his agent, his stage name to ' Allen '; the agent believed that only a few people in England could pronounce the name " O'Mahony " right.

Allen lost the tip of his left index finger after he had fallen into a machine gear with him. He told in his shows different stories, as had happened, how that his brother John had bitten it to him when they were small children, or that he had done it himself in order to avoid military service. In one of his shows, he also told a lengthy ghost story, at the end of it, " something bad " had attacked in a dark haunted house, whereupon he bit down and then realized in the light of that evil was his own left hand.

Allen's first television appearance was in 1959 in the BBC talent show New Faces. Early 1962, he appeared in the opening act of a Popmusiktournée with Helen Shapiro in England, on which also the then almost completely unknown Beatles appeared. In the same year he undertook a Tours in South Africa and occurred with the vaudeville star Sophie Tucker. On her advice he made 1963 Tours in Australia, which was very successful immediately. He moved to Australia and moderated on the Channel 9 a talk show, Tonight with Dave Allen. However, he was exiled six months after his Fernsehdébut from the screen, because he called his show producers during a live broadcast - who urged him to make a commercial break - "to go and masturbate " so that he this interesting interview with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore could continue. The ban has been lifted but discreet again, when it became clear that Allen's popularity was undiminished.

1964 married Allen - after a brief affair with Eartha Kitt - English actress Judith Stott ( the marriage was divorced in 1983 ). The son of the two, Edward James O'Mahoney ( artist name Ed Allen) is also comedian. His wife wanted to return to England, Allen agreed, and the two moved to London in late 1964. Allen now had a number of appearances at Independent Television (ITV ), including The Blackpool Show, Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium, and in BBC in the Val Doonican show. 1967 Allen then got in his first ITV comedian show Tonight with Dave Allen, the Variety Club 's ITV Personality of the Year Award which he won. In 1969 he joined the BBC, where he introduced the Dave Allen Show. This was followed from 1971 to 1979 Dave Allen at Large, which introduced its kind, stories and jokes to tell, as he sat smoking and drinking on a bar stool, interrupted by pre- Sketches. During this time, Allen also made the Dave Allen Show in Australia (1975-1977) for his former employer, Channel 9 in Australia. For a summary of his show David Allen at Large, he won in 1975 at the Rose d'Or in Montreux, Switzerland, one of the most important annual events in television entertainment (today in Lucerne ), a Silver Rose. In the same year he had six performances at the Theatre Royal in Oslo, Norway, which were received with enthusiasm. In contrast, a brief appearance on Broadway was a failure in New York.

After the end of 1979, the highly successful show David Allen at Large Allen was content with occasional performances and undertook after the tragic death of his brother John in 1986, again a Tournée to Australia. With that he disappeared for the time being from the TV screen.

Followed in 1990, as a surprise to many, a remake of the six episodes of the show in England, now called simply Dave Allen. Although the chair was still on the stage, Allen stood throughout the show. His unadorned language caused angry protests of many viewers, and the show could not build on the success of the former. In 1993 he returned again back to ITV, where he appeared in his last regular series Dave Allen. He was honored at the British Comedy Awards for Lifetime Achievement in 1996.

End of the 1990s, Allen went into the partial retirement and had only occasional appearances. Among other things, he presented in 1998 in the BBC 's six-part series The Unique Dave Allen, in which he spoke between clips and excerpts from his previous broadcasts on his career. Now he showed in his performances a painful awareness of aging, by his concerns on the one hand at the antics of teenagers, on the other hand on his with age slack become skin and gray and less become, but now burgeoning in other, unfamiliar parts of the body hair.

Allen's hobbies included the painting for which he is increasingly enthusiastic in his later years. In 2001, his first exhibition, Private Views, held in Edinburgh.

Allen made ​​in addition to his work as a comedian even more serious television documentaries, including 1969 Dave Allen in the Melting Pot and 1974 In Search of the Great Eccentrics and Eccentrics at Play, all for ITV

He graduated in addition also a successful stage career. In 1972, he appeared as Dr. Daly in Edna O'Brien's play A Pagan Place, a production at the Royal Court Theatre, as well as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in Peter Pan, a production of the Coliseum Theatre, London. In 1979, he played one stuck in a midlife crisis impoverished man in Alan Bennett's television film One Fine Day.

Allen spent his last years withdrawn in partial retirement in Kensington, west London, where he received visits from his closest friends and his family regularly. As a hobby painter, he turned further from his pictures. Smoking, he was celebrated during his public appearances in the seventies, he had long since given up.

He died on 10 March 2005 peacefully in his sleep at the age of 68 years. He left his only 18 months married to him -been wife Karin O'Mahoney Stark and his three children June ( b. 1965 ), Edward ( * 1968) and Cullum (* 2005).