Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing material for television in the 1950s, working alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon. He also published several books featuring short stories, and writing humor pieces for The New Yorker. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian in Greenwich Village alongside Lenny Bruce, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, and Joan Rivers. There he developed a monologue style (rather than traditional jokes), and the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish. He released three comedy albums during the mid to late 1960s, earning a Grammy A