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Paris Review - Woody Allen, The Art of Humor No. 1

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As New Yorkers know, Woody Allen is one of its more ubiquitous citizens—at courtside in Madison Square Garden watching the Knicks, at Michael’s Pub on Monday evenings playing the clarinet, on occasion at Elaine’s Restaurant at his usual table. Yet he could hardly be considered outgoing: shy on acquaintance, he once expressed an intense desire to return to the womb—“anybody’s.” In fact, his career is one of prodigious effort in a number of disciplines—literature, the theater, and motion pictures. “I’m a compulsive worker,” he once said. “What I really like to do best is whatever I’m not doing at the moment.” Allen’s career in comedy began as a teenager when he submitted jokes to an advertising firm. In 1953, after what he called a “brief abortive year in college,” he left school to become a gag-writer for Garry Moore and Sid Caesar. In the early 1960s, his stand-up routines in the comedy clubs of Greenwich Village gained him considerable recognition, and eventually several television ap

Interviewed by Michiko Kakutani Issue 136, Fall 1995 Woody Allen, ca. 1969. Take the Money and Run As New Yorkers know, Woody Allen is one of its more ubiquitous citizens-at courtside in Madison Square Garden watching the Knicks, at Michael's Pub on Monday evenings playing the clarinet, on occasion at Elaine's Restaurant at his usual table. Yet he could hardly be considered outgoing: shy on acquaintance, he once expressed an intense desire to return to the womb-"anybody's." In fact, his career is one of prodigious effort in a number of disciplines-literature, the theater, and motion pictures.

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