Richard Hoffman Woody Allen collection

Richard Lee Hoffman, the Brooklyn-based theater collector and bookdealer, built a number of literary collections around American and British playwrights over a period of many years.

Hoffman has said that he entered the United States Army in the 1950s as an actor and left as a writer. His military experience led to an assignment to create a television program titled “Your Army in View,” which consisted of interviews and live drama. After his discharge from the service in 1955, Hoffman taught in the drama department of The City University of New York. During this period he was awarded a Eugene O'Neill fellowship for playwriting. He also seriously began to collect rare books and first editions of contemporary American dramatists, notably the playwrights Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Neil Simon. Richard Hoffman’s interest in collecting first editions led to his career as an antiquarian bookdealer.

"Richard Hoffman." Literature Resource Center. http:/galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC (accessed February 2009).

Award-winning American film writer and director Woody Allen, born Allan Stewart Konigsberg on December 1, 1935 in New York City, has starred in many of the films he has written. Allen began writing gags for the agent David O. Albers in high school. By age nineteen, he was writing scripts for television shows, such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, and Caesar’s Hour. He was also writing plays and short stories, several of which appeared in The New Yorker. In 1960 he launched a career as a stand-up comedian and began writing for television’s Candid Camera.

Allen’s first movie production, for which he wrote the initial screenplay and in which he made his acting debut, was What’s New, Pussycat? (1965). The production of Annie Hall (1977) marked the beginning a period of critically acclaimed and financially successful films for Allen, including Interiors (1978), Manhattan (1979), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

Woody Allen is the winner of numerous awards including the O. Henry Award, a Golden Globe for best screenplay, and several Academy awards.

Literature Research Center Biographies. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC (retrieved February 1, 2007).Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2007. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC (retrieved February 13, 2007).