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Irwin Allen (June 12, 1916 – November 2, 1991) was a television and film director and producer nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. He was also notable for creating a number of television series. Allen was born in New York City. His film credits include the 3-D film Dangerous Mission (1954), The Animal World (1956), the critically panned The Story of Mankind (1957), The Big Circus (1959), The Lost World (1960), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), which later became the basis of his TV series of the same name, and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962).... MORE

Irwin Allen (June 12, 1916 – November 2, 1991) was a television and film director and producer nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. He was also notable for creating a number of television series. Allen was born in New York City. His film credits include the 3-D film Dangerous Mission (1954), The Animal World (1956), the critically panned The Story of Mankind (1957), The Big Circus (1959), The Lost World (1960), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), which later became the basis of his TV series of the same name, and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962). He also produced The Towering Inferno (1974). In the 1960s, Allen moved into television as "the most successful science-fiction producer of the decade", and was responsible for series such as: He also produced several TV movies, such as City Beneath the Sea, which used or recycled many of the props and models from Voyage, Lost in Space, and Man From The 25th Century. Both were intended as pilots for new TV series projects, but his small-screen success from the 1960s largely eluded him in the 1970s. Allen's science-fiction series had earned a reputation as being notorious for using nonsensical LESS