Alan King, a stand-up comic for more than five decades, is also an actor, producer, author, philanthropist, fashion entrepreneur, and pro tennis tournament organizer.

King's acting career took off in 1955 with Hit the Deck, and he has continued to earn feature roles in commercially successful films such as Enemies, A Love Story and Author! Author! He has 25 major motion picture credits, including Casino and Night and the City, both starring Robert DeNiro.

He recently completed Rush Hour 2 with Jackie Chan and Sunshine State, directed by John Sayles. An owner and member of the Executive Board of the Kaufman-Astoria Studios, he produced Memories of Me, co-starring with Billy Crystal.

As an author, he has five best-selling books to his credit, among them his autobiography, Name-Dropping -The Life & Lies of Alan King, and The Jewish Wit for Crown Publishing.

On his long-running show, Alan King: Inside The Comedy Mind on HBO's Comedy Central, he interviewed comedians and actors, exploring their attitudes about what makes comedy. He hosts PBS' Great Performance Series The College of Comedy.

For the Broadway stage, he has produced and starred in The Impossible Years, and has also produced a number of shows, including Tyrone Guthrie's Dinner at Eight and the first Barbara Streisand tour.

Recently, King was elected Abbot of the New York Friars Club, a position that had been held by Frank Sinatra for the past twenty years. A player and purveyor of tennis, his service to the sport has earned him a place in the Eastern Tennis Association's Hall of Fame. Each year, King is the master of ceremonies of the United States Open's Arthur Ashe Tennis Challenge.

His philanthropic contributions extend to Jerusalem, where he founded the Alan King Diagnostic Medical Center. He also established a nonsectarian scholarship fund for American students at the Hebrew University, and an Albert Einstein Scholarship Fund. He pioneered the Toyota Comedy Festival for the last nine years and its Laugh Well program, bringing stand-up comedy to tri-state area hospitals.