
Woody Allen
A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham
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Narrated by:
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Seth Lews
About this listen
Woody Allen was once made a knight commander by France, but he didn’t know because the paperwork got lost in the mail.
A decade later, he found out about the award by reading about it in the New York Times.
Across nearly nine eventful decades, Allen’s life has been full of surprises. Writing jokes got him a gig as the youngest writer of Sid Caesar’s television dream team. As a rising comic, he boxed a kangaroo on TV. He made a blank-check deal with a major studio for terms unmatched in Hollywood apart from early titans like Chaplin and Welles. All before Annie Hall.
Yet despite once being one of the most consequential American cultural figures, Allen is now persona non grata. In this judicious biography, acclaimed biographer Patrick McGilligan charts the meteoric rise and fall of the comedian whose nonconformity proved both his secret genius and Achilles’ heel.
Drawing on meticulous research, McGilligan reconstructs Allen’s Brooklyn boyhood, his salad days as a television comedy writer, his rise to stand-up, and the thoughtful, award-winning filmmaking of his golden years in the 1970s and ’80s. His messy relationships with wives and girlfriends, including Annie Hall costar Diane Keaton, were essential to his artistic development and undoing. Yet no one could have predicted his tumultuous personal and professional relationship with actress Mia Farrow, his alleged abuse of their adopted daughter Dylan, and his subsequent marriage to Mia’s daughter Soon-Yi Previn.
In this comprehensive, sweeping, and rigorous account of Allen’s life and career, McGilligan astutely reveals the writer’s writer beyond the smoke and controversy, and paints a compelling portrait of the most creative, productive, and influential filmmaker of his time.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Patrick Mcgilligan (P)2023 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Young Orson
- The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane
- By: Patrick McGilligan
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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For the centennial of his birth, the defining wunderkind of modern entertainment gets his due in a groundbreaking new biography of his early years - from his first forays in theater and radio to the inspiration and making of Citizen Kane. No American artist or entertainer has enjoyed a more dramatic rise than Orson Welles. In this magisterial biography, Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before.
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Standard McGilligan bio; not great, not terrible
- By Keith on 11-18-19
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Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties
- The Collapse of the Studio System, the Thrill of Cinerama, and the Invasion of the Ultimate Body Snatcher—Television
- By: Foster Hirsch
- Narrated by: Foster Hirsch
- Length: 36 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions—from Cinerama, Cinemascope and Vistavision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the anti-hero; the smoldering, the hidden, and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios, the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the “small screen” television.
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Captivating from start to finish
- By Steve C. on 02-01-25
By: Foster Hirsch
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Fosse
- By: Sam Wasson
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The only person ever to win Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards in the same year, Bob Fosse revolutionized nearly every facet of American entertainment. His signature style would influence generations of performing artists. Yet in spite of Fosse’s innumerable—including Cabaret, Pippin, All That Jazz, and Chicago, one of the longest-running Broadway musicals ever—his offstage life was shadowed by deep wounds and insatiable appetites.
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Amazing!
- By Helen on 11-06-24
By: Sam Wasson
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Woody
- The Biography
- By: David Evanier
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In this first biography of Woody Allen in over a decade, David Evanier discusses key movies, plays, and prose as well as Allen's personal life. Evanier tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart. Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade and his sixth decade of making movies.
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For Woody fans
- By Frank Markow on 06-21-16
By: David Evanier
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The Path to Paradise
- A Francis Ford Coppola Story
- By: Sam Wasson
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only thirty. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than fifty years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis.
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Narrator was awful
- By Cyrus Nowrasteh on 12-17-23
By: Sam Wasson
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Dark Way Down
- By: Lauren Parker
- Narrated by: Lauren Parker
- Length: 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Dark Way Down, a road trip in verse, is a speculative continuation of David Bowie's album, Station to Station, featuring the iconic David Bowie character, the Thin White Duke. The collection explores gender, addiction, occultism, and toxic queer masculinity through the lens of the Duke’s lesbian daughter, a mixed-up queering of bygone relics and Casanova. From Lauren Parker's pensive daydreams out of Dodge, the Daughter of the Duke drives a rickey Chevelle from Bel Air to the Mesas of New Mexico seeking the place where her father was last seen. This is the story of what she found.
By: Lauren Parker
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Pretend We're Dead
- The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the '90s
- By: Tanya Pearson
- Narrated by: Kendra Hoffman, Carrington MacDuffie, Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2018, during an interview with journalist Tanya Pearson, Shirley Manson lamented: "It’s a blanket fact that after September 11th, nonconformist women were taken off the radio.” This comment echoed a reality Pearson had personally witnessed as a musician and a fan, and launched her into a quest to figure out just what happened to these extraordinary female figures. Pretend We’re Dead seeks to answer two big questions.
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The well investigated content and personal interviews
- By meg jones on 01-29-25
By: Tanya Pearson
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Sinatra
- The Chairman
- By: James Kaplan
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 40 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Just in time for the Chairman's centennial, the endlessly absorbing sequel to James Kaplan's best-selling Frank: The Voice - finally the definitive biography that Frank Sinatra, justly termed "The Entertainer of the Century", deserves and requires. Like Peter Guralnick on Elvis, Kaplan goes behind the legend to give us the man in full, in his many guises and aspects: peerless singer, (sometimes) powerful actor, business mogul, tireless lover, and associate of the powerful and infamous.
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So, So Long...
- By A Concerned Reader on 03-03-16
By: James Kaplan
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A Murder on Campus
- The Professor, the Cop, and North Carolina's Most Notorious Cold Case
- By: Brian Santana, Cameron Santana
- Narrated by: Gary Williams
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The Professor, The Cop, And North Carolina’s Most Notorious Cold Case by Brian and Cameron Santana is a true crime investigation that unveils the shocking story behind the brutal 1973 murder on campus of 19-year-old Virginia Marie Olson.
By: Brian Santana, and others
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Roots and Rhythm
- A Life in Music
- By: Charlie Peacock
- Narrated by: Charlie Peacock
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In this artful memoir, Grammy Award-winning music producer Charlie Peacock flexes his literary chops and gives listeners the gritty backstage stories they crave: biographical anecdotes, geeky trivia, and how the hits were written and recorded (from jazz to rock and pop). Threaded throughout is Peacock’s unique ancestral and spiritual story—the roots. Like Coltrane, Dylan, and Bono before him, Peacock reveals a Christ-affection while refusing genres too small for his music.
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Thoughtful, vulnerable and spiritual
- By Doug Romaine on 02-09-25
By: Charlie Peacock
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Warhol
- By: Blake Gopnik
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 43 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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To this day, mention the name “Andy Warhol” to almost anyone and you’ll hear about his famous images of soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. But though Pop Art became synonymous with Warhol’s name and dominated the public’s image of him, his life and work are infinitely more complex and multifaceted than that. In Warhol, esteemed art critic Blake Gopnik takes on Andy Warhol in all his depth and dimensions.
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Explaining an Enigma
- By Keith on 05-05-20
By: Blake Gopnik
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Shout!
- The Beatles in Their Generation
- By: Philip Norman
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 21 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Philip Norman’s biography of the Beatles is the definitive work on the world's most influential band—a beautifully written account of their lives, their music, and their times. Now brought completely up to date, this epic tale charts the rise of four scruffy Liverpool lads from their wild, often comical early days to the astonishing heights of Beatlemania, from the chaos of Apple and the collapse of hippy idealism to the band's acrimonious split.
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Highly critical and overly general
- By Patrick King on 04-04-25
By: Philip Norman
What listeners say about Woody Allen
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Buretto
- 02-08-25
Final Impressions (after First Impressions)
Overall, a comprehensive history of Woody Allen's professional and personal history. As expected domestic issues dominate a large part of the latter part of the book, both in media coverage of the man, and its effects on the box office of his films. I do feel that the author did paint 'woke' with a bit too broad of a brush when referring to efforts to diminish his work and legacy (As detailed in my original first impressions below, I will gladly accept the label 'woke', yet I don't have any desire to cancel anyone over unsubstantiated, and unproven, rumors). But he does balance that with a thorough accounting of the Farrow camp's McCarthyite tactics to extort renunciations of Allen from celebrities who've worked for him in the past. It does build of picture of Mia essentially turning Dylan into a life-long professional victim, *regardless* of the veracity of the allegations. But ultimately, I don't think it will serve to change anyone's mind, either way, about the issue.
As for the balance of the book, it's informative with backstage and administrative goings on, if a bit repetitive in reciting plots to the successive films (those who buy this book will probably already know the stories, so it just serves as filler). It's written in a strictly chronological style, which is to say, preparations and casting of the next film are often detailed prior to the debut and release of (and subsequent reactions to) the prior film, which can lead to a few misunderstandings as to which actor did what when for which film. And I'm not sure why the narrator (who did better with most pronunciation later in the book, affected a half hearted Woody-ish voice when reading quotes. Not strong enough to be genuinely critiqued, but enough to wonder why he did it!
In the end, the book is a fair, comprehensive view of a genius comedian and filmmaker and a genuinely weird (in any way one wishes to define it) human being. He certainly portrays some cringeworthy moments in his films, particularly regarding young women. But he's also unquestionably one of the preeminent filmmakers to showcase women in a diverse range of roles, powerful, vulnerable, quirky and complex. Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow absolutely shine in his films. Cate Blanchett has a strong filmography, but Blue Jasmine features her in a way that would be virtually unimaginable from any other filmmaker. I certainly hope that reason will be restored, and that, along with his comedic genius, will be his legacy.
+First Impressions+ (original review below)
I felt the need to write an intermediate review to share my thoughts thus far.
First, full disclosure, I regard Woody Allen as the preeminent comedic filmmaker of the latter half of the 20th century, bar none. Not even Mel Brooks or the Pythons, whom I love, match him. That stated, a few impressions...
It's a bit concerning that I am only 4 chapters in (about a quarter of the way through the book, Allen is just making What's Up Tiger Lily and Casino Royale, not yet to Take the Money and Run.), and I've already heard the name of (previous Allen biographer) Eric Lax referenced (no lie) over a dozen times, as well as Allen's book "Apropos of Nothing", half a dozen times. I understand that a biographer will cover well-trodden ground at times, and citations are necessary, but at a point it becomes a distraction, as the listener wonders why this new book is even needed. (The author lays out the case in the PDF, and I suspect the book will bear sweeter fruit in later chapters.
Which brings up the point of the 'scandal'. I have no sacred cows in the arts, but yet I have no problem separating the art and the artist. I will look at all the information and come to conclusions. Long story short, I believe Moses and the adoptive children, and I don't believe Mia (I won't add Dylan, as she is a victim, in any reading of the case). But I was bit worried with what I feel is the author's mis-characterization of "woke" and "cancel culture". It certainly is unfortunate that his reputation and standing in the film community has suffered over this situation. But it is a mis-application of 'wokeness', in my opinion. I would happily self-identify as woke, as I view it as a recognition of historical social injustice and the desire to remedy its effects. Some take it too far, without a discerning eye. And let's face it, none of the "anti-woke" crowd would have ever bothered to watch a Woody Allen film, much less defend him against baseless allegations. It remains to be heard how the author plays this card, but I continue with trepidation.
Finally, for now, I rarely ever criticize narrators, as it usually is nitpicking. There have been numerous mispronunciations, most of which consist of the usual suspects of calling Deborah Kerr as it's spelled rather than 'Carr' as it is pronounced properly, or mangling "bon mots". But when he referred to the Parisian hotel as "the George V" (yes, pronouncing V, not 'cinq'), I just about had enough. Again, on its own, humorous. But too much, and it becomes a distraction.
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