Peter Allen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Allen (February 10, 1944June 18, 1992) was an Australian songwriter and singer.

Born Peter Allen Woolnough in Tenterfield, New South Wales, Allen began his performing career as one of the "Allen Brothers" who were a popular cabaret and television act in the early 1960s. Discovered by Judy Garland while Allen was performing in Hong Kong, she invited him to return with her to the United States where he performed with her. He married her daughter Liza Minnelli in 1967. They were divorced in 1972.

Allen recorded his first album, the autobiographical Tenterfield Saddler (1972), but he achieved more success writing for other performers. He wrote "Don't Cry Out Loud" for Melissa Manchester, and scored his biggest success with the song "I Honestly Love You" recorded by Olivia Newton-John. Her single reached number one in the United States and won two Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Newton-John.

In 1977 Allen released an album Taught By Experts, which reached number one in Australia, along with the number one singles "I Go To Rio" and "The More I See You". Although his recording career in the US never progressed, he became a popular performer in Las Vegas and had a long engagement at New York City's Radio City Music Hall.

He co-wrote the song "Arthur's Theme" (sometimes also called "The Best That You Can Do") with Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager and Christopher Cross, for the movie Arthur (1980). Cross' version of the song reached number one in the US, and the songwriters won an Academy Award for Best Song.

He died in San Diego, California from complications caused by AIDS.

After his death, one of his older songs I Still Call Australia Home, became popular through its use in television commercials for initially National Panasonic, then after 1988 Qantas tourism, and came to be regarded as an unofficial Australian national anthem.

A musical based on his life, titled The Boy from Oz, opened in Australia in 1998. Using his largely autobiographical songs to form the soundtrack, the production starred Todd McKenney as Allen, and Christina Amphlett of rock group Divinyls as Garland. The show was an outstanding success. In 2003 it opened on Broadway, becoming the first Australian musical ever to be performed there. In this production Allen was played by Hugh Jackman who won a Tony Award for his portrayal in 2004.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.