Fred Allen and his “Comedy Corona Portable Typewriter”

Fred Allen with his wife Portland Hoffa.

While posting stories about H. Allen Smith last month, I was reminded of another great American humourist from the 1940s, Fred Allen. Allen loved typing on his Corona portables. He always fancied himself as a writer, rather than a mere a radio personality – indeed, one critic considered he might have been the Mark Twain of the 20th Century, if he'd changed his act. But, like e.e. cumings, Allen didn’t care too much about the shift key. Still, a testament to his passion for using a typewriter and his brilliant talent for entertaining is the 1965 book fred allen’s letters, edited by Cambridge, Massachusetts-born former sportswriter Joseph Weston McCarthy (1915-80), editor of YANK, the US military weekly magazine, during World War II, and later of Cosmopolitan magazine. It was Joe McCarthy who chronicled the Kennedy “Camelot” years, but for us it is his commentary on Fred Allen’s typewriting that counts for most.

In his introduction, McCarthy wrote of Allen, “Typing with two fingers, Allen rarely made a typographical error; nowhere in any of his letters are words xed-out or erased. On the few occasions when his typing did go astray, he would let it stand and go into a comic aside in parentheses, denouncing the typewriter for butting in on his literary efforts. ‘this is the comedy typewriter’ he complained after a funny misspelling in a letter to Groucho Marx, typed on May 14, 1953. ‘you don’t have to think, you keep typing along and the typewriter makes up puns and gags by itself. i will come home some night and find that the typewriter is gone and is working as a writer for jackie gleeson.’ ‘you’ll go a long way among your writers to find a man who will beat this typewriter’.” Allen concluded,  “The frigging typewriter is showing off again.”

Editor Joe McCarthy.

McCarthy commented, “He had always wanted to be a full-time writer; one reason why he devoted so much time to turning out so many letters was the satisfaction that he found at his typewriter.” In one of his typed letters, Allen wrote, “Up home, I am so far removed from affairs of the moment that the typewriter often pouts in its case feeling that I have found a new love. In the Fall, however, it is surprised to have me fling off its pod and start another Winter of pummelling.”

Like Joe McCarthy, Fred Allen was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Allen’s case on May 31, 1894. His birth name was John Florence Sullivan. Allen’s absurdist, topically pointed radio program The Fred Allen Show (1932-49) made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the Golden Age of American radio. His best-remembered gag is his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny. Allen was perhaps radio's most admired comedian and most frequently censored. A master ad libber, Allen developed routines the style and substance of which influenced fellow comic talents, including Groucho Marx, Stan Freberg, Henry Morgan and Johnny Carson, His avowed fans included James Thurber, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Herman Wouk.

Fred Allen fan, author Herman Wouk, talks to Mike Lipsky, 17, editor of the Fire Island Weekly newspaper on August 18, 1957.

In 1917 he changed his stage name Fred Allen. A former chorus girl, Portland Hoffa, became his wife in 1927 and remained with him until his death. A writing opportunity arose with a column for Variety called “Near Fun”, but a salary dispute closed the window. Allen wanted only $60 a week to give up his theatre work to become a full-time columnist. His Town Hall Tonight was the longest-running hour-long comedy-based show in classic radio history.

Allen tried television but said, “You know, television is called a new medium, and I have discovered why they call it a medium – because nothing is well done.” He said he didn’t like “furniture that talked” and observed that television allowed “people who haven't anything to do to watch people who can't do anything”. “Television is a triumph of equipment over people … the minds that control it are so small that you could put them in the navel of a flea and still have enough room beside them for a network vice president's heart.”

Allen did get to devote some of his last years to writing - as a newspaper columnist and as a memoirist. He rented a small New York office and worked at his typewriter six hours a day without distractions. From this came the best-selling Treadmill to Oblivion (1954), which included many of his vintage radio scripts, and the autobiographical Much Ado About Me (1956). Allen suffered from hypertension and died of a heart attack while taking one of his regular late night strolls (not with a dog) up New York's West 57th Street on Saturday, March 17, 1956, a fortnight after Joe McCarthy’s 41st birthday. Allen was aged 61.