On the eve of 93, Marty Allen turns comic eye on his own career
Marty Allen has a lot more framed photos than he has walls to display them.
He has a very nice house, mind you. He just has a lot more photos from a career that spans at least 70 of his nearly 93 years.
If you had an already-framed picture signed by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who wrote “Thanks for being so human,” you’d likely free up some space.
But in the guest house, which serves as Allen’s office, and where he sometimes writes short stories or the self-published memoir “Hello Dere!” (his catchphrase), the Aldrin photo waits for its wall.
The competition includes a photo of Dean Martin, who inscribed, “Is that a haircut or did you back into a wall socket?” referring to the shock of Van de Graaff hair that’s made Allen immediately recognizable since the early ’60s.
Elvis Presley wrote that Allen put on “one of the best damn shows we’ve ever seen,” adding “You get a 99+.”
With and without stage partner Steve Rossi, who died last year, Allen traveled the world and made the rounds. Perhaps the most amazing thing about their career is that Allen and Rossi accomplished most of it as an opening act.
“The singers were the big stars, and they used comedians to open the show: ‘Do your 20 minutes and get off.’
“I got lucky,” Allen adds. “I worked with Nat (King Cole), I worked with (Frank) Sinatra, (Paul) Anka, Shirley Bassey, Patti Page. … I worked with superstars who will never come our way again.”
A lot of people he is pictured with are laughing at the moment the photos were snapped.
Take John Lennon. “He had no idea who I was,” when fate brought the Beatles to “The Ed Sullivan Show” the same night as Allen and Rossi. “So I walk over and say, ‘John?’ He says, ‘Yes?’
“ ‘A lot of people mistake me for you.’ ”
A variant version of the line worked for Betty Ford: “A lot of people mistake me for your husband.”
Betty Ford somehow knew he could do the jitterbug, and that’s why there’s a picture of the two of them dancing at the White House, the floor cleared of anyone else who would dare crash the moment.
That big silly grin on Presley’s face came after Allen scolded him, “You gotta quit doing my act.”
“I never saw anybody laugh like that,” he says.
Allen turns 93 on March 23, and he will celebrate by doing what he likes to do best, performing. He and Karon Kate Blackwell — his stage partner and wife since 1984, when the two were married at Sidney Sheldon’s mansion — will play the Downtown Grand’s Grand Parlor on March 22 and 23.
Blackwell has long played the straight-man role in Allen’s classic routines. But this time they’re trying something different. All those pictures? Fans will get to see them.
Instead of doing the old skits like the addled football player, Allen will offer a running commentary on a slide show.
His wife talked him into it. “Marty, you’re so funny when you’re telling stories about your life,” she would tell him. “In the beginning, though, he wouldn’t do it.” But they tried it at a recent date in California and the crowd loved it.
He won’t be able to bring along everything, like his medal for heroism in World War II, his poster for “A Whale of a Tale” — perhaps William Shatner’s most obscure movie — or his bound copy of the script for his episode of “The Big Valley.”
But there’s only so much room in a house, and only so much time in a show.
“You name it, I did it,” he says.
For more stories from Mike Weatherford go to bestoflasvegas.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.
