Steve Allen

Stephen Valentine Patrick William "Steve" Allen (December 26, 1921 – October 30, 2000) was an American television personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. Though he got his start in radio, Allen is best known for his television career. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. He graduated to become the first host of The Tonight Show, where he was instrumental in innovating the concept of the television talk show. Thereafter, he hosted numerous game and variety shows, including The Steve Allen Show, I've Got a Secret, and The New Steve Allen Show, and was a regular panel member on CBS' What's My Line? My family faithfully watched The Steve Allen Show when I was growing up, and sometimes watched his other programs.

Allen was a credible pianist and a prolific composer, having penned over 14,000 songs, one of which was recorded by Perry Como and Margaret Whiting, others by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Les Brown, and Gloria Lynne. Allen won a Grammy award in 1963 for best jazz composition, with his song The Gravy Waltz. Allen wrote more than 50 books, has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Hollywood theater named in his honor.

Memorable lines:

• Queens has some really Catholic neighborhoods. I mean exceptionally Catholic. Even the praying mantises don't just pray. They say novenas.
• Asthma doesn't seem to bother me any more unless I'm around cigars or dogs. The thing that would bother me most would be a dog smoking a cigar.
• I used to be a heavy gambler. But now I just make mental bets. That's how I lost my mind.
• One of the nice things about problems is that a good many of them do not exist except in our imaginations.

And my personal favorite: If there is a God, the phrase that must disgust him is holy war.

Steve Allen died on this date in 2000 following an automobile accident. His death was apparently not directly caused by injuries suffered in the accident, which he had not even bothered to report to his family, but by a massive heart attack that the doctors thought had been triggered later by the shock to his system, already weakened by age and pre-existing coronary artery disease.