Marty Allen

Morton David Alpern, known professionally as Marty Allen, was born on March 23, 1922, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Louis Alpern, a restaurant and bar owner whose family had emigrated from Romania and Russia, and Elsie Moss Alpern. He graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1940 and was later inducted into the school's alumni Hall of Fame in 2009. Allen went on to build a career as a comedian, actor, and philanthropist that spanned several decades and encompassed nightclubs, television, film, and Broadway.

During World War II, Allen served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, attaining the rank of sergeant while stationed in Italy. He earned a Soldier's Medal for a act of bravery in which he drove a fuel truck away from a burning plane, returned to the aircraft on foot, and extinguished the fire by rolling over the flames while still in uniform, saving the lives of the men who had been boarding the plane. His actions were subsequently honored with a full-dress parade.

Allen's comedy career began in the early 1950s alongside his first partner, Mitch DeWood, with whom he worked as an opening act for performers including Sarah Vaughan, Eydie Gormé, and Nat King Cole, and appeared at venues such as the Copacabana. After he and DeWood parted ways in 1958, Allen formed the comedy duo Allen and Rossi with Steve Rossi. The partnership, which lasted from 1957 to 1968, produced a string of hit comedy albums and 44 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, including the February 16, 1964, broadcast featuring The Beatles, during which Allen drew a response from the audience by announcing "I'm Ringo's mother." Allen and Rossi also appeared together in the 1966 spy comedy film The Last of the Secret Agents? and reunited periodically for performances from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Allen's Broadway career ran from 1961 to 1964 and included four productions: Let It Ride!, Hot Spot, Nowhere to Go But Up, and I Had a Ball. These stage credits coincided with a period of significant activity in his broader entertainment career, including his extensive television work and his comedy partnership with Rossi.

Allen transitioned into dramatic acting with his debut on the television series The Big Valley, in which he played the character Waldo Diefendorfer. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, he made hundreds of television appearances, including regular appearances on The Hollywood Squares, as well as appearances on Circus of the Stars, Password, and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. He also appeared in ten made-for-television movies and in theatrical films including The Great Waltz (1972), Harrad Summer (1974), and A Whale of a Tale (1976).

Beginning in 1968, Allen conducted an annual "Hello Dere" tour of military hospitals in the United States, named after a catchphrase he had popularized, entertaining and speaking with wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam. He continued the tours annually through 1972. He also contributed to charitable organizations including the American Cancer Society, The Heart Fund, the March of Dimes, Fight for Sight, and Cerebral Palsy, and served on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation.

Allen married Lorraine "Frenchy" Trydelle, whom he met when she was the reservation and office manager of the Concord Resort Hotel in the Catskills, in 1960. She died of cancer in 1976. In 1983, he met Karon Kate Blackwell, a pianist and songwriter, at a Los Angeles restaurant she was managing. The two married on June 17, 1984, at the Beverly Hills home of writer Sidney Sheldon, and settled in Las Vegas. From the 1980s onward, Allen and Blackwell performed together as a musical comedy act, appearing at venues including the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino, Southpoint Casino, Palace Station, the Rampart Casino, the Downtown Grand in Las Vegas, and the Metropolitan Room in New York City, as well as on cruise ships.

Allen died on February 12, 2018, at his home in Las Vegas, with Blackwell at his side, from complications from pneumonia. He was 95 years old. He was interred at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.