Allen Swift

Allen Swift, born Ira J. Stadlen on January 16, 1924, in Washington Heights, Manhattan, was an American actor, writer, and magician who worked across Broadway, television, animation, and commercial voiceover throughout a career spanning several decades. He adopted his professional name from two sources: radio comedian Fred Allen and eighteenth-century satirist Jonathan Swift. He died on April 18, 2010, at the age of 86, at his Manhattan home, following a series of health complications that began when he fell and broke his hip while walking his dog.

Swift grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from the High School of Music & Art. He enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in November 1942 and served until November 1945, working as an entertainer and attaining the rank of private first class during that time.

His early television career brought him to The Howdy Doody Show on NBC, where he stepped in to replace Buffalo Bob Smith while Smith recovered from a heart attack. Smith had maintained that no one else could perform the voice of the lead puppet character, but Swift took home recordings over a weekend, returned on Monday, and supplied Howdy Doody's voice for more than a year. He also performed the characters of Clarabell the Clown and Chief Thunderchicken on the program, and supplied the majority of the show's other character voices as well. Swift later became the second comedy writer for Howdy Doody, following the departure of the series' original comedy writer and songwriter, Edward Kean. From September 10, 1956, to September 23, 1960, he hosted The Popeye Show on WPIX in New York City, appearing as a sea captain named Captain Allen Swift, a role in which he commented on cartoons, told stories, sang sea shanties, and performed magic tricks.

Swift became widely recognized as a voiceover artist, most notably for providing the voices of the cartoon villains Simon Bar Sinister and Riff-Raff on the Underdog cartoon show, as well as Popeye in the 1960s Popeye cartoons and the character Clint Clobber. He voiced many characters in the 1960s underwater puppet show Diver Dan and contributed voices to Gene Deitch's 1961–1962 group of Tom and Jerry cartoons, as well as The Bluffers. In the 1970s, he voiced Twinkie the Kid in animated television advertisements for Hostess Twinkies. For Rankin/Bass, he provided the majority of the voices in Mad Monster Party?, credited as Alan Swift in that film's credits, and also appeared in The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor's New Clothes as the voice of Musty, and as the voice of Gadzooks the Bear in The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town. He additionally contributed voices to Sesame Street and served as the voice of "Tech" in a series of Mopar service training films.

His commercial voiceover work was extensive. In the 1960s, he originated the voice of the Frito Bandito in animated Fritos Corn Chips commercials. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was the talking drain in Drano television commercials, voiced the Mirinda Craver in Jim Henson's Mirinda commercials, and served as the voice of The Burger King. He also played Captain Cupcake in Hostess Brands commercials. His range allowed him to voice competing products, including Tip-Top, Braun, Stroehmann, and Taystee. In 1973, he impersonated Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker and Adolf Hitler as "Dolf" on MAD magazine's vinyl insert recording of "Gall in the Family Fare," a satire of All in the Family published in the magazine's Super Special No. 11.

Swift's Broadway career ran from 1961 to 1985 and included appearances in The Iceman Cometh, The Student Gypsy, How to Make a Man, My Old Friends, and Checking Out. He also wrote the book for Checking Out, which served as the basis for a film of the same name starring Peter Falk, Laura San Giacomo, Judge Reinhold, and David Paymer. Toward the end of his life, he wrote the memoir Chutzpah! Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, An Actors Life for Me.

Outside of his performing career, Swift was a figurative painter whose landscapes and figures were compared to the work of artists Leland Bell and Fairfield Porter. He was married to actress Lenore Loveman and was the father of three children: character actor, mimic, and singer Lewis J. Stadlen; holistic health practitioner Maxime Zahra; and eating disorder specialist and entrepreneur Clare A. Stadlen.