5 things you didn't know about Steve Allen

In his 50+ year career Steve Allen has been a writer, composer, actor, radio & television personality, and author. After just a few years in radio Mr. Allen made the jump to television. In 1953 pioneered a new format of show when he created “The Tonight Show” as a local late night variety/talk show in New York. The following year he went national with the show that has become the standard for late night television. He left the “The Tonight Show” in 1957 but went on hosting more shows of his own. He was semi-regulator panelist of the game show “What's my line” in the 1950's & 1960's. Mr. Allen also appeared on several television shows into the 1990's.

He had a brief stint in the military

Depending on the source, Steve Allen either enlist or was drafted into the United States Army in 1943. Either way his job as a radio DJ was cut short as he reported for basic training. After training he was stationed at Camp Robert in California with thousand of other infantry men waiting for deployment overseas. Mr. Allen never went overseas though when frequent asthma attack cut his military career short. He was given a medical discharge after 5 months.

He was a wrestling announcer

In 1949 Steve Allen was hired to be a wrestling announcer on television. At the time that he was hired there were not formal names for the different holds in professional wrestling. So, Mr. Allen would make up names for the moves and some of the names he came up with are still used to this day.

He was a prolific songwriter

Steve Allen has written thousands of songs in his career. Most of the songs he wrote have been lost to history. Some of his song have been sung by the likes of Judy Garland, Perry Como and Mel Torme. One of his songs, “The Gravy Waltz”, won a Grammy Award in 1964 for “best original Jazz composition”.

He authored several books
Mr. Allen has authored or co-authored over 50 books. Most of the books are comedy-based but he also wrote about religion, education, and a few other subjects. 9 of his books where mysteries that were co-authored by ghostwriters, Robert Sheldon and then Robert Westbrook.

He died shortly after a car accident

In 2000 Steve Allen was driving to his sons house when he was hit by a car backing out of a driveway. He didn't appear to be injure'd and went on to his destination. Shortly after arriving at his son's house he said he was tired and went to lay down. His son eventually went to check on him to ind him dead of what appeared to be a heart-attack. In an autopsy later it turned out that he had died from internal bleeding as a result of a ruptured blood vessel that he sustained in the car accident.