Woody Allen: A Biography

He was born Allan Konigsberg in the Bronx, but his personal destiny and some of filmdom's most celebrated comedies - Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors - have made Woody Allen the quintessential New Yorker.This telling, new biography - the first since the tabloids headlined his rift with his long-term mistress, Mia Farrow, and his affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi - tells how a reclusive, melancholy kid achieved unparalleled success as a screenwriter, director, and star. It also explores the real Woody Allen, the critically acclaimed filmmaker from the Upper East Side, and his amusing movie persona of a neurotic and lovable loser.Shrewdly and effectively deconstructing Woody, John Baxter's biography illuminates Allen's preoccupation with sex and mortality, his personal quirks and obsessions, his manipulation of celebrity, and his cinematic achievement as chronicler and court jester of Manhattan's intellectual elite.