During the 1970s Peter Allen earned acclaim simultaneously for crafting romantic ballads including “I Honestly Love You” and “Don’t Cry Out Loud” and for his contrasting persona as a flamboyant stage performer. Mastery of the piano came early, allowing him to entertain patrons at the tavern in his tiny Australian hometown while still a youngster. By 1959 he had reached Sydney and stepped in at the last moment as part of a duo on the television program Australian Bandstand alongside guitarist and singer Chris Bell. The pairing proved popular and soon the two performed under the name the Allen Brothers. Early in the ’60s they scored an Australian hit with “My Secret” and embarked on a tour of the Far East. While appearing at a Hong Kong hotel in spring 1964, they caught the attention of Judy Garland, who arranged bookings for them and brought them to London as her opening act. She also introduced Allen to her daughter Liza Minnelli, and the pair became engaged. The Allen Brothers made their American debut at Miami’s Diplomat Hotel in December 1964 before relocating to New York. Throughout the remainder of the ’60s they worked clubs across the United States, among them the various Playboy Clubs. After an extended courtship Allen and Minnelli wed on March 3, 1967.
Late in the decade Allen immersed himself in Greenwich Village’s music and theater circles and grew weary of the more traditional entertainment sphere embodied by both his professional partner and his spouse. He and Minnelli parted during the 1969 holiday season, though their divorce was not finalized until July 24, 1974, while the Allen Brothers disbanded in spring 1970. Allen’s first solo engagement took place on June 24, 1970, at the Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village. He contributed songs to the Off-Off-Broadway La Mama Theatre Company and reached Broadway on January 12, 1971, in the rock opera Soon, which closed after only three performances.
Drawn to the emerging introspective singer-songwriter movement of the early ’70s, Allen also pursued more commercial material. As a staff writer at Metromedia Records he collaborated with Carole Bayer Sager on “Jennifer,” which Bobby Sherman performed in the television film Getting Together, recorded for Metromedia, and turned into a Top 40 hit by fall 1971. The label next invited Allen to cut his own album, resulting in Peter Allen in 1971 and Tenterfield Saddler in 1972. Fellow artists on New York’s club scene began covering songs from these releases, prompting Allen’s own return to the stage with a 1973 appearance at Reno Sweeney’s. In 1974 he and Jeff Barry wrote the wistful ballad “I Honestly Love You,” which Olivia Newton-John recorded and took to number one in October. The success led to a contract with A&M Records and the release of his third album, Continental American. Taught by Experts followed in 1976 and included “The More I See You,” an easy-listening chart entry.
Allen’s introspective songwriting increasingly stood in contrast to his exuberant concert persona, a duality captured on the 1977 A&M double-live set It Is Time for Peter Allen. Back home in Australia his buoyant recording of “I Go to Rio,” co-written with Adrienne Anderson, reached the top of the charts. In the United States he made a cameo in the 1978 summer film musical Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That autumn Melissa Manchester scored a Top Ten hit with his and Carole Bayer Sager’s “Don’t Cry Out Loud.” Allen’s own version appeared on his fourth A&M album, I Could Have Been a Sailor, which became his first charted LP in 1979. Early that year Pablo Cruise charted with “I Go to Rio,” while Rita Coolidge reached the Top 40 at year’s end with the Allen-Sager ballad “I’d Rather Leave While I’m in Love.” Allen brought his stage show to Broadway in Up in One, More Than a Concert. His fifth A&M album, Bi-Coastal, arrived at the close of 1980, another chart entry that yielded the pop-charting single “Fly Away.” In 1981 he headlined Radio City Music Hall, dancing with the Rockettes and riding a camel during “I Go to Rio.”
When Carole Bayer Sager joined Burt Bacharach and Christopher Cross to compose a theme for the comedy film Arthur, she remembered a line from an earlier unrecorded song she and Allen had written: “When you get caught between the moon and New York City.” The phrase became central to “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” which topped the charts for Cross in fall 1981 and earned Allen and his co-writers the Academy Award for best song.
Allen toured North America before returning to Radio City Music Hall in September 1982. He moved to Arista Records and issued Not the Boy Next Door in early 1983; the album charted and produced three adult-contemporary entries: “You Haven’t Heard the Last of Me,” “Once Before I Go,” and “You and Me (We Wanted It All).” Continued extensive touring brought him back to New York for sold-out Carnegie Hall performances in September 1984 that were documented on the 1985 Arista album Captured Live at Carnegie Hall. During those shows he previewed material from the musical Legs Diamond. Four years later the production reached Broadway, opening on December 26, 1988; although it ran only 64 performances, a cast album was recorded for RCA, which also released Allen’s final album, Making Every Moment Count, in 1990. He succumbed to AIDS-related complications in 1992.
