He was born Allan Konigsberg in the Bronx, but his personal destiny and some of filmdom's most celebrated comedies - Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors - have made Woody Allen the quintessential New Yorker. This telling, new biography - the first since the tabloids headlined his rift with his long-term mistress, Mia Farrow, and his affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi - tells how a reclusive, melancholy kid achieved unparalleled success as a screenwriter, director, and star. It also explores the real Woody Allen, the critically acclaimed filmmaker from the Upper East Side, and his amusing movie persona of a neurotic and lovable loser. Shrewdly and effectively deconstructing Woody, John Baxter's biography illuminates Allen's preoccupation with sex and mortality, his personal quirks and obsessions, his manipulation of celebrity, and his cinematic achievement as chronicler and court jester of Manhattan's intellectual elite. "A splendidly written, exhaustive account and a major achievement" - The Observer "Astute and highly entertaining biography" - Daily Telegraph "A bracing corrective to the usual po-faced, sycophantic studies of the cult of Woody" - Mail on Sunday "Full of interesting information for cinema enthusiasts" - The Spectator "The saga [of Woody and Mia] makes compulsive reading" - The Guardian Woody Allen is one of the few truly independent directors working today. Baxter, who has previously published studies of filmmakers Bu?uel, Fellini, and Kubrick, here weaves a narrative about Allen's life and work. He describes Allen's insecurities, phobias, and melancholy; his ambivalent views toward women, sex, and his Jewish identity; and his general neuroticismAa recurrent motif in his films (Allen originally planned to title Annie Hall "Anhedonia," which means the inability to experience pleasure). He also chronicles the filmmaker's early academic and social failures and his escape to Manhattan (where he wrote for Sid Caesar before turning to stand-up comedy and then film directing). Some new information can be gleaned hereAreaders might be surprised to learn that Allen looked to Bob Hope as a role model, for exampleAbut a fair amount of Baxter's material is marginal, second-hand, or overly familiar, particularly coverage of the Soon-Yi Previn scandal. This likely results from Baxter's being denied access to Allen and most of his colleagues. In the end, Allen comes across as a cold, aloof character who nevertheless helped shape 20th-century filmmaking. Useful mostly for large film collections.AStephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. There is no dearth of books on Woody Allen, but Baxter's is the first to appear since Allen's split with Mia Farrow because of his affair with her adopted daughter, whom he later married. Some of Allen's diehard fans may be taken aback by Baxter's combination of tolerance of Allen's peccadilloes, including his unconventional love life, and unstinting criticism of such subpar films as Celebrity . Baxter details the development of Allen's nebbishy onscreen persona, showing how drastically it differs from the real-life Woody, and he demonstrates how closely Allen's art has paralleled his life, from sardonic gags about his wife in early stand-up routines to the character of the demon-plagued, creatively blocked protagonist of Deconstructing Harry (1997). Scandal and creative doldrums notwithstanding, Allen retains a sizable following likely to eagerly read a nonsycophantic account of him that is judgmental about his films rather than his life. Gordon Flagg The biographer of Steven Spielberg (1997) and Stanley Kubrick sets his sights on one of the cinema's great comic minds. Born Allen Stewart Konigsberg, the filmmaker grew up in wartime Brooklyn, a period and neighborhood to which he returned in such films as Radio Days. Baxter contends that his father's unstable job situation and the family's constant shuffling between relatives early in his life left Allen with a long-standing resentment of his parents and his religion. He mines the films for examples, noting for instance that the parents of the characters Allen plays are masked when they appear onscreen. Baxter is not the first person to find Allen's personal life in his films, a hobby that has grown since scandal enveloped Allen's personal life when he left longtime partner Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, his current wife. But he suffers more than most biographers from an inability to distinguish the man from the artist. Peering into every one of Allen's films, he analyzes the repeated use of prostitutes, the references to Judaism, the jokes about therapy. For Baxter, a joke is never just a joke, but a desperate cry for help. When he does move away from a minatory pseudoanalysis, as when he describes Allen's early career as a comedy writer, his tale is at its most entertaining. Baxter tells of Danny Simon, Neil Simon's brother, who gav