Woody Allen is an American director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning movies. He began his career as a comedy writer on Sid Caesar's comedy variety program, Your Show of Shows, working alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon.He also began writing material for television, published several books featuring short stories, and writing humor pieces for The New Yorker.  In 2004 Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen the third-greatest comedian.