34 Facts About Irwin Allen

1.

Irwin Allen created and produced the popular 1960s science-fiction television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants.

2.

Irwin Allen was born in New York City, the son of poor Jewish immigrants from Russia.

3.

Irwin Allen majored in journalism and advertising at Columbia University after attending City College of New York for a year.

4.

Irwin Allen left college because of financial difficulties caused by the Great Depression.

5.

Irwin Allen produced his first TV program, a celebrity panel show called Hollywood Merry-Go-Round with announcer, and later Tonight Show host, Steve Allen, before moving into film production.

6.

Irwin Allen became involved in film production at a time when power was beginning to shift from studios to talent agencies.

7.

Irwin Allen put together packages consisting of directors, actors, and a script, and sold them to film studios.

8.

Irwin Allen made his directorial debut with the documentary, The Sea Around Us.

9.

Irwin Allen returned to producing with the three-dimensional film Dangerous Mission, his final film for RKO.

10.

Irwin Allen directed a semidocumentary about the evolution of life, The Animal World.

11.

The actors were each paid $2,500 for a single day's work with Irwin Allen relying on stock footage for the rest of the film.

12.

Irwin Allen co-wrote and produced The Big Circus for Allied Artists Pictures with Mature, Red Buttons, Peter Lorre, and Price.

13.

Irwin Allen then went to 20th Century Fox, where he co-wrote, produced, and directed three films: The Lost World, from the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Five Weeks in a Balloon.

14.

Willis O'Brien, who had worked on the pioneering special effects of the original Lost World and King Kong films, was disappointed when Irwin Allen opted to save time by using live alligators and lizards instead of stop-motion animation for the film's dinosaurs.

15.

Irwin Allen used many of the same craftsmen on his TV shows as he did on his films, including composer John Williams and costume designer and general assistant Paul Zastupnevich.

16.

Irwin Allen had originally intended Lost in Space to be a family show, a science-fiction version of The Swiss Family Robinson.

17.

Irwin Allen cited The Time Tunnel as his favorite of all of his television productions and he would attempt to revamp and relaunch the concept numerous times including a filmed pilot in 1976 called The Time Travelers and unfilmed concepts that included one called Time Travel Agency and another called The Time Project that went through several incarnations.

18.

Irwin Allen produced several television films, such as City Beneath the Sea, which recycled many props and models from Voyage, Lost in Space, and Man From The 25th Century.

19.

In 1969, Irwin Allen signed a three-picture deal with Avco Embassy to make The Poseidon Adventure, No Man's World, and Almost Midnight, but the deal did not lead to any films there.

20.

Unable to find a studio to fully back the venture, Irwin Allen raised half the $5 million budget, with 20th Century-Fox putting up the rest; the film eventually grossed over $100 million.

21.

Irwin Allen hoped to follow up on the success of The Poseidon Adventure with a film based on the novel The Tower, but the film rights had already been taken by Warner Bros.

22.

Irwin Allen looked for an alternative and found a similar story in The Glass Inferno.

23.

The success of the films led to Irwin Allen receiving an offer to make three television films.

24.

Irwin Allen left 20th Century Fox when a change in management in 1976 cancelled the remaining three planned disaster films, with incoming studio chief Alan Ladd, Jr.

25.

Irwin Allen continued to work there for the remainder of his career.

26.

Irwin Allen purchased the rights to several Marvel Comics characters including Daredevil, Black Widow and others for television adaptation in the 1980s; he commissioned a script for a Daredevil pilot from writer Stirling Silliphant, but the project never went before cameras.

27.

Irwin Allen later went to Columbia to make a short-lived TV series, Code Red.

28.

Irwin Allen planned to make a star-studded musical of Pinocchio, but his declining health forced his retirement in 1986.

29.

Irwin Allen died in Los Angeles from a heart attack on November 2,1991.

30.

Irwin Allen is buried in the Garden of Heritage 5, upper level wall crypt 39J in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

31.

The "Irwin Allen rock-and-roll" is when the camera is rocked as the on-screen cast rushes from side to side on the set, simulating a ship being tossed around.

32.

Allen's career in film and TV was the subject of a 1995 documentary, The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen, produced and directed by Kevin Burns, co-founder of Foxstar Productions, originally set up as the production unit responsible for creating a series of Alien Nation movies for television.

33.

Burns and Jashni later formed Synthesis Entertainment, and began developing and producing remakes of, and sequels to, several Irwin Allen properties, including a 2002 Fox Television pilot for an updated version of The Time Tunnel, which did not sell, and remakes of films including Poseidon and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

34.

The Irwin Allen Show was a Johnny Carson-style talk show with Allen as the host.