Woody Allen is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian, and playwright. His large body of work and cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit and humor, have made him one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era.Allen writes and directs his movies and has also acted in the majority of them. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, European cinema and New York City, where he was born and has lived his entire life.

Over the course of his career Allen has received a considerable number of awards and distinctions in film festivals and yearly national film awards ceremonies, saluting his work as a director, screenwriter and actor.When premiering his films at festivals, Allen does not screen his motion pictures in competition, thus deliberately taking them out of consideration for potential awards.

* Allen's film "Annie Hall" won four Academy Awards in 1977, including best picture.

* Allen won the 1978 O. Henry Award for his short story "The Kugelmass Episode" published in The New Yorker on May 2, 1977.

* Allen twice won the César Award for Best Foreign Film, the first in 1980 for "Manhattan" and the second in 1986 for "The Purple Rose of Cairo". Seven other of his movies were nominated for the prize.

* In 1986, Allen won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay for "The Purple Rose of Cairo". He was also nominated four times as Best Director, four times for Best Screenplay and twice for Best Actor (Comedy/musical).

* At the 1995 Venice Film Festival, Allen received a Career Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.

* In 1996, Allen received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of America.

* In 2002 Allen won the Prince of Asturias Award. Subsequently, the city of Oviedo, Spain erected a life-size statue of Allen.

* In 2002, Allen received the Palme des Palmes, a special lifetime achievement award granted by the Cannes Festival and whose sole other recipient is Ingmar Bergman.

* In a 2005 poll The Comedian's Comedian, Allen was voted the third greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

* In June 2007 Allen received a PhD Honoris Causa from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain)

Allen continues to write roles for the neurotic persona he created in the 1960s and 1970s; however, as he gets older, the roles have been assumed by other actors such as John Cusack (Bullets Over Broadway), Kenneth Branagh (Celebrity), Jason Biggs (Anything Else), and Will Ferrell (Melinda and Melinda).

Allen spent at least 30 years undergoing psychoanalysis, some three days a week. Many of his films contain a psychoanalysis scene. Even the film Antz, a cartoon where he only voices Z, the lead character, begins with a classic piece of Allen analysis schtick.

Moment Magazine says "it drove his self-absorbed work".John Baxter, author of Woody Allen - A Biography, wrote "Like Catholic confession, Allen's form of analysis let the penitent go free to sin again," and that "Allen obviously found analysis stimulating, even exciting."

Allen says he ended his psychotherapy visits around the time he began his relationship with Previn. He says he still is claustrophobic and agoraphobic.

Allen is a passionate fan of jazz which is often featured prominently in his movies' soundtracks. He has played the clarinet since adolescence and chose his stage name from an idol, famed clarinetist Woody Herman.

Source : www.wikipedia.org