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Though known largely for his work
as a stand-up comedian, talk-show host, and creator of The Tonight Show,
Steve Allen was a 20th-century renaissance man - pianist, prolific
composer of more than 8,500 songs (which gained him entry in the Guinness
Book of World Records as the most prolific composer of modern times),
symphony conductor, political activist, singer and musician with 75 albums
to his credit, and author of 54 books.
Throughout his life, the serious side of Allen took center stage as he
moved towards cultural and media criticism, creating such television
series and accompanying books as PBS's Emmy and Peabody Award-winning
Meeting of the Minds. In four series broadcast in the '70s and '80s, Allen
moderated a panel of actors impersonating historic figures such as Marquis
de Sade, 18th-century economist-jurist Cesare Beccaria, China's Dowager
Empress Tz'u-hsi and American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who
explained their diverse philosophies.
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Speaker of the Week #2
He opens by
commenting on the lack
of substance in TV |
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He was also the author of Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking, first released
in 1996, and in subsequent modified editions. A humorous and provocative
examination of the increasing tendency toward muddle-headedness and
ineptitude - Allen's concept of "dumbth," - he added to the book in
subsequent editions, its final rendition released in 1998.
Towards the end of Allen's life - he died in October 2000 at the age of 78
- he became a media and cultural commentator, and his final book,
Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio - Raising the Standards
of Popular Culture was released posthumously in 2001.
