Love, loneliness and all that jazz

Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg), the prolific, Oscar-winning auteur, New Orleans-style jazz clarinettist, doyen of New York delicatessen society, moralistic nihilist and icon of nebbishes everywhere, will be 80 on 1 December. He says he hopes to sleep through the occasion, but he is already completing next year’s film, his 47th, and preparing a series of programmes for television. In the meantime, here, in homage, are two magnificently illustrated catalogues raisonnés.

Both books incidentally tell the story of his life, including the time when he courted his former partner Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, and caused all media hell to break loose. He survived disapproval by working, married the girl in 1997, and they still live happily together.

He was born in the Bronx and brought up in Brooklyn. His father was a taxi-driver, bartender and soi-disant jeweller, and his mother worked in a flower shop. She took her son to the cinema for the first time at the age of three, to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which combines the essentials of romantic drama — beauty, fear and comic relief. He was immediately so attracted to the screen that he reached forward, as though attempting to touch it. Years later, of course, he succeeded in a big way.

According to Radio Days, a nostalgic portrayal of Allen’s early boyhood, when his whole extended family listened to the radio night and day, his affectionate but irritable father and mother and their rabbi competed for the privilege of smacking his head. He was a highly intelligent, unenthusiastic scholar. Expelled from New York University, he began selling gags to newspaper columnists and comedians on radio and in nightclubs. The writing came easily. He soon found jobs performing his material, and by 17 he was making more money than his parents combined.