Biography

Dave Allen

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Born
July 6, 1936 · Tallaght, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
Died
March 10, 2005 · Chelsea, London, England, UK (heart failure brought on by emphysema)
Birth name
David Edward John Archer Cullen Tynan O'Mahony
Height
5′ 9½″ (1.77 m)

Born of a prominent Irish journalist in Dublin, Ireland, Dave Allen started out working and touring through English theatres and night clubs. Only occasionally working on radio, he made his first TV appearance on the BBC's "New Faces." He managed to tour with The Beatles while they were still starting out and soon managed to get an eight-month TV engagement called Tonight with Dave Allen (1967), which ended as still one of the most successful shows in Australia. During 1969, he turned from comedy to making documentaries, but then in 1971, he returned to BBC television for Dave Allen at Large (1971), another top-rated show. In 1972, he lived out a lifetime ambition to do plays, soon playing both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in "Peter Pan" for the London Coliseum. He followed up with two more TV specials in Australia. Floating between stage, television, and more documentaries, he premiered in America in 1981 with "An Evening With Dave Allen." He died suddenly in March 2005.
- IMDb mini biography by: William Uchtman <aesgaard41@hotmail.com>

The top joint of his left index finger was missing. He would not say how it happened - his biography suggested several theories such as getting his finger caught in a car door or an accident on a building site. On-screen he offered many fanciful explanations such as that it was bitten off by his brother, or that it had worn away after he had used it so many times to brush dust off his jacket during his "sit-down" comedy monologues. The truth came out after his death: as a child he had been playing in an abandoned mill, he put his finger in some gears, and another child turned the gears and accidentally crushed his finger.
He explained that his sign-off line which ended "... and may your God go with you" should be interpreted in the sense "*Please* take your God with you - because *I* don't want him".
Except for comedy sketches involving more than one participant, Allen always delivered his monologues seated in a studio chair, effectively making him a "sit-down" comedian.
The beverage he drank when performing comic monologues whilst sitting on a stool was ginger ale, though he led the audience and viewers to believe it was whiskey. On occasions he drank champagne instead of ginger ale.
Children: Jane O'Mahony (born 1966), Edward James Tynan O'Mahony (born 1968), Cullum Allan Tynan O'Mahony (born May 2005).

[usual sign-off line from his television shows] Goodnight, thank you, and may your God go with you.
[playing Richard III in one of his sketches] Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword, Which if thou please to hide in this true breast And let the soul forth that adoreth thee, I lay it naked to the deadly stroke And humbly beg the death upon my knee. [She stabs him] You weren't supposed to do that!
[refusing to apologise for his occasional on-screen swearing] "I am Irish and we use swearing as stress marks."
[comment in one of his monologues which caused considerable protest, an apology by the BBC and questions to be asked in the House of Commons, because of its use of the F-word] "We spend our lives on the run. We get up by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, go to work by the clock, get up again, go to work - and then we retire. And what do they give us? A fucking clock."
"People always ask what is the appeal of (traditional Irish folk ballad) Molly Malone? The sad tale of a working class Dublin girl who dies tragically young? Well it's surprisingly simple, it's the one song every Irish person can sing without getting into an argument with each other".

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