Irwin Allen (TV producer)

Born Irwin Cohen on June 12, 1916, Irwin Allen was an American film and television producer and director, known for his work in science fiction, then later as the "Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. His most successful productions were The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He also created and produced the popular 1960s science-fiction television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (TV series, 1964-68), Lost in Space (TV series, 1965-68), The Time Tunnel (TV series, 1966-67), and Land of the Giants (TV series, 1968-70).

Starting out as a magazine editor in the late 1930s, he had is own radio show for 11 years, and then his own gossip column called "Hollywood Merry-Go-Round", published in 73 newspapers. In the 1950s he produced movies for RKO and Warner Brothers, before moving to 20th Century Fox in the 1960s where he directed The Lost World (1960) and Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea (Film, 1961). With 20th Century Fox scaling back their film productions due to their huge expenditure on films such as Cleopatra (1963), in the mid-1960s, Allen concentrated on television, producing several overlapping science-fiction series for 20th Century Fox Television.

Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea (TV series, 1964–68) established Allen's reputation as a television producer on which he was financially assisted by the reuse of many of the sets from the 1961 film. He intended Lost In Space (TV series, 1965–68) to be a family show but it quickly developed into a children's show concentrating on the young Will Robinson, the robot, and, especially, the comic villain, Dr Smith. The Time Tunnel (TV series, 1966-67), with each episode set in a different historical time period, was an ideal vehicle for Allen's talent for smoothly mixing live action with stock footage from films set in the same period. Land of the Giants (TV series, 1968–70) was the most expensive show of its day. He incorporated some of the successful elements from Lost in Space (TV series, 1965–68), although this time he did not allow the treacherous character to dominate the series.

Allen also produced several television films, such as City Beneath The Sea (TV film, 1971), which recycled many props and models from Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea (TV series, 1964–68) and Lost In Space (TV series, 1965–68). Though intended as a pilot for a new TV series project, his small-screen success from the 1960s largely eluded him in the 1970s. Instead, he was able to produce big budget theatrical pictures such as The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).

He returned to Fox, and then Warner Brothers, in the mid-1970s. For the latter, he made the TV movies Viva Knieval! (1977)  and The Amazing Captain Nemo (TV film, 1978), and The Swarm (1978) and Beyond The Poseidon Adventure (1979) for cinema.

In the 1980s, Allen moved to Columbia but failing health forced his retirement in 1986, and he died from a heart attack on November 2, 1991.