Alan King is a Renaissance Man. He is well known for his concurrent careers as a comedian, actor, producer, author, TV personality, philanthropist, fashion entrepreneur, pro tennis tournament organizer, chairman of the board, and political activist. He has found a way to cram 36 hours into 24; how else could he accomplish all that he does? A stand-up comic for more than five decades, he is a favorite among Britain's Royal Family, and has given several Royal Command Performances.

King is as versatile an actor as he is a brilliant comic mind, and he has often been cast against type, playing serious parts and sometimes a villain. He has 19 major motion picture credits, most recently Casino and Night and the City, both starring Robert DeNiro.

King's acting career took off in 1955 with Hit the Deck and has continued to earn feature roles, in myriad acclaimed and commercially successful big screen films such as Bonfire of the Vanities; Enemies, A Love Story; Author! Author!,; I The Jury; Just Tell Me What You Want; and The Helen Morgan Story.

On the production side of celluloid, King is an owner and member of the Executive Board of the Kaufman-Astoria Studios, where interiors are shot for many films made in New York City, and has produced Memories of Me co-starring Billy Crystal.

King, the author, has four best-selling books to his credit, among them the recently published Name-Dropping‹The Life and Lies of Alan King as well as Anyone Who Owns His Own Home Deserves It; Help, I'm a Prisoner in a Chinese Bakery; and Is Salami and Eggs Better Than Sex? Conquering TV, he's had his own long-running show, Alan King: Inside the Comedy Mind on HBO's Comedy Central, in which he interviewed comedians and actors, exploring their attitudes toward, and definition of, what makes comedy. Before he made it a reality, it was an untapped concept in the talk show arena. He has appeared more than 1,000 times on virtually every variety show in the annuals of TV.

His involvement in comedy reaches far beyond the stage and screen. He has just been elected Abbot of the New York Friars Club, a position that has been held by Frank Sinatra for the past 20 years.

King's entrepreneurial spirit is reflected in his heavy involvement in the marketing and design of his Chinawear clothing firm, a mid-priced line of popular and stylish sportswear.

A player and purveyor of tennis, he is co-chair of the annual Newsweek Champions Cup. Each year, King is the master of ceremonies of the US Open Arthur Ashe Tennis Challenge.

His philanthropic contributions extend to Jerusalem, where he founded the Alan King Diagnostic Medical Center, a thirteen-story hospital complex. He also established a nonsectarian scholarship fund for American students at the Hebrew University, and an Albert Einstein Scholarship Fund.

He has established a Dramatic Arts chair at Brandeis University. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, and pioneered the Toyota Comedy Festival and its Laugh Well program, bringing stand-up to tri-state area hospitals.

Ever the champion of the maligned and oppressed, King closely follows politics and civil rights issues. He campaigned for John and Robert Kennedy, and marched with Martin Luther King. But, what is most important to him is his wife, his children and his grandchildren.