Irwin Allen - Biography

Biography

Allen was born in New York City. His film credits include the 3-D film Dangerous Mission (1954), The Animal World (1956), The Story of Mankind (1957), The Big Circus (1959), The Lost World (1960), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) (later the basis of his TV series of the same name), and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962). In the 1970's, he produced popular disaster films including The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).

In the 1960s, Allen moved into television as "the most successful science-fiction producer of the decade", and was responsible for series such as:

• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964–1968)
• Lost in Space (1965–1968)
• The Time Tunnel (1966–1967)
• Land of the Giants (1968–1970)
• The Swiss Family Robinson (1975–1976)
• Code Red (1981–1982).

Allen also produced several TV movies, such as City Beneath the Sea, which recycled many props and models from Voyage, Lost in Space, and Man From The 25th Century. Both were intended as pilots for new TV series projects, but his small-screen success from the 1960s largely eluded him in the 1970s. Allen's science-fiction series had earned a reputation for using nonsensical science and for catering to juvenile audiences. Lost in Space's Bill Mumy said of Allen that, while he was very good at writing television pilots that sold, his unwillingness to spend money hurt his shows' quality once on the air. A monster costume that appeared on one of his shows, for example, would appear on another a few weeks later with new paint. In his book Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964-1970 (McFarland & Co. Publishers, 2006), writer Jon Abbott described Allen as paradoxical. "Here was a man who, when told the cost of a spaceship for a Lost in Space alien, snapped, 'Let him walk!' ... and then let the show be canceled rather than take a cut in the budget."

In the 1970s, Allen returned to cinema screens and was the most popular producer associated with the decade's fad for the disaster film genre. Allen produced the successful The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974), which he also co-directed. He produced several made-for-TV disaster movies: Flood! (1976), Fire! (1977), Hanging by a Thread (1978), The Night the Bridge Fell Down (1979), and Cave In! (1979). For theatrical release, he produced and directed The Swarm (1978) as well as Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) and produced When Time Ran Out (1980). Despite this success, the rise of new filmmakers like George Lucas took him off guard; the success of Star Wars reportedly bewildered him at how a film with apparently no stars or love story could enrapture audiences so fervently.

In the late 1970s and mid-1980s, Allen sporadically returned to TV with miniseries efforts such as The Return of Captain Nemo/The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978) and a star-studded version of Alice in Wonderland (1985). He was planning on making a star-studded musical of Pinocchio, but a decline in health caused retirement in 1986.

Allen died from a heart attack in 1991.