Allen Swift

Voice Actor, TV Actor

1924 – 2010

63

Who was Allen Swift?

Ira Stadlen, known professionally as Allen Swift, was an American voice actor, known for playing characters including Simon Bar Sinister and Riff-Raff on the Underdog cartoon show. He provided the voices of many of the characters in The Bluffers, most of the voices for the 1960s underwater puppet show Diver Dan, and the voices in Gene Deitch's 1960–1962 group of Tom and Jerry cartoons. Swift was a children's television show host on WPIX in New York City as "Captain Allen". He took his professional name from radio comedian Fred Allen and 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift.

Swift was an early television star who hosted The Popeye Show from September 10, 1956 to September 23, 1960, until he was forced to leave the program. The reason for his dismissal from The Popeye Show was creative differences with station management.

Swift did the majority of the voices in Rankin/Bass's Mad Monster Party?, credited as Alan Swift in the movie's credits. He was also in another Rankin/Bass TV special "The Emperor's New Clothes", as the voice of Musty. As well as the original voice of the Frito Bandito.

He supplied most of the character voices for the NBC Howdy Doody Show, and when Buffalo Bob Smith, who himself did the voice of the lead puppet character Howdy Doody and had many times proclaimed that "nobody else could do Howdy" suffered a heart attack, Swift took home some recordings over the weekend, came back on Monday and did Howdy's voice for more than a year.

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Born
Jan 16, 1924
New York City
Also known as
  • Ira Stadlen
  • Alan Swift
Spouses
Children
Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Lived in
  • New York City
Died
Apr 18, 2010
New York City

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

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"Allen Swift." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/allen_swift>.

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