For the first time, the full life story of the filmmaker laureate: a smart and entertaining deconstruction of Woody Allen's genius, celebrity, and art. Born Allen Konigsberg in the Bronx, the man who came to direct some of the most celebrated comedies in movie history - Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors - is revealed in all his neurotic complexities in this adroit study by John Baxter. The first biography since the tabloids headlined Allen's lurid breakup with Mia Farrow and his affair and subsequent marriage to her adopted daughter, Soon Yi, this illuminating chronicle of Allen's career - from his days writing jokes for Sid Caesar to his eventual fame as filmdom's quintessential New Yorker - details the often scandalous success that Allen has achieved as screenwriter, actor, and director. And Baxter's compelling saga never fails to uncover Allen's calculated construction of the Woody persona and how far the hapless, obsessive character on screen is from the actual man. "Intelligently points out the gap between the shambling on-screen character that Allen created and the successful, controlling artist." - New York Times Book Review