Video: Tonight Show-clip from the first episode

"Multi-talented" is a term I've casually used when writing about various performers, but I can't imagine anyone better suited to the description than Steve Allen. He authored dozens of books, composed thousands of songs, was an accomplished musical performer - and along the way became a TV pioneer, the forerunner to Carson, Leno, and Letterman . Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was born in New York and raised in Chicago, the son of Vaudeville performers. Although he was a talented pianist and was never far from a keyboard, his career began in Arizona (where he was attending college) [...]

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