Steve Allen was the kind of entertainer that, for the most part, is sorely lacking today. He appealed to the better side of human nature.
The crassness that seems to inundate all fields of entertainment today was never a part of Allen's repertoire.
And he had an impressive repertoire. Allen, who died Monday of an apparent heart attack at the age of 78, left his mark in numerous entertainment fields during a career that spanned a half-century.
He was probably best known for starting "The Tonight Show" in 1953. NBC picked it up in September of 1954. In its 47-year history it has had only four hosts — Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno — and all have carried on his basic format.
Allen's brilliant wit and insight carried the show. As he remarked in an interview taped in May for the Museum of Television and Radio's permanent collection, "When 'The Tonight Show' started, you know how many writers I had? None."
As one of his successors, Carson, noted, "All of us who have hosted the 'Tonight Show' format owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Allen. He was a most creative innovator and brilliant entertainer."
Allen's talents were as broad as his humor. He was an actor, social commentator, novelist and composer. His brand of comedy was in sharp contrast to many of today's leading comics and talk show hosts, for whom vulgarity and sexual innuendo are staples.
In his later years, Allen became a crusader against filth in the entertainment industry and what he considered to be the dumbing down of America. He worked with advocacy groups committed to taking garbage off television. He began complaining as early as 1980 that TV comedies were "far too dirty for my taste."
What he said about television in "Reflections," a biography published in 1994, is simple yet profound: "What is true of television is true of life and the universe itself — part of it is magically wonderful and part of it is dreadful. The thoughtful viewer, therefore, picks his way among the assorted cathedrals and rubble, glorying in the former and avoiding the latter."
With the death of Allen, television has one less cathedral.