Ira Stadlen, known professionally as Allen Swift (b. January 16, 1924) is a voice actor, known for playing characters like Simon Bar Sinister on the Underdog cartoon show. He also provided the voices of many of the characters in The Bluffers, most of the voices for the 1960's underwater puppet show known as Diver Dan, and the voices in Gene Deitch's 1960–62 group of Tom and Jerry cartoons. Swift was also 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 before getting his own program.
Swift did the majority of the voices in Rankin/Bass's Mad Monster Party? but his name was misspelled as Alan Swift in the movie's credits.
His first important TV work was in supplying 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. No listeners ever knew the difference.
Swift is married to actress Lenore Loveman, and is the father of character actor, mimic and singer Lewis J. Stadlen. He is currently living in Manhattan.
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