Nettie Konigsberg was the mother of celebrated Hollywood star Woody Allen. Nettie Konigsberg’s son is an American comedian, writer, and filmmaker whose career has spanned more than six decades. He is best known for his bittersweet comic films containing elements of parody and slapstick. Allen has received many accolades, including the most nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, four Academy Awards, ten BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Grammy Award. His notable films include Anne Hall, Manhattan, Midnight in Paris, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Nettie Konigsberg: Bio Summary
Full Name | Nettie (Cherry) Konigsberg |
famous as | Mother of Woody Allen |
Age | 95 at the time of death |
Date of Birth | 8 November 1906 |
Place of Birth | Manhattan, New York County, New York, USA |
Zodiac sign | Scorpio |
Date of death | 27 Jan 2002 New York, New York County, New York, USA |
Nationality | American |
Ethnicity | Jew |
Children | Woody Allen, Letty Aronson |
spouse | Martin Konigsberg (m. 1930–2001) |
Who is Woody Allen’s mother?
Nettie Konigsberg was born on 8 November 1906 in Manhattan, New York County, New York, USA. She was the daughter of Leon Cherry- a polisher of metalware: gold, silver, copper, brass, and Sarah Cherry. Nettie had a sister Paul Cherry Gilbert. Her father, Leon, at age twenty-six, left Austria and came to America in 1891, a decade after an older brother, Joseph, had made the trip. Woody Allen’s mother passed away in 2002 at the age of 95. What was the cause of her death? Keep reading to learn more.
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Woody Allen’s mother Nettie Konigsberg was a bookkeeper at her family’s delicatessen. She was married to Martin Konigsberg a jewelry engraver and waiter. They walked down the aisle in 1930. A few years later, the couple welcomed their first child- Allan Stewart Konigsberg who later at the age of 17, legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and later began to call himself Woody.
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After Woody, they also had a daughter, Ellen Letty Aronson (née Konigsberg; born November 30, 1943). His daughter is also in the film industry just like her son. She is a producer. Ellen has produced many of her brother Woody Allen’s films including Bullets over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Deconstructing Harry, Celebrity, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. The siblings were raised in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood.
Allen’s parents did not get along, and he had an estranged relationship with his authoritarian, ill-tempered mother. Nettie Konigsberg is often referenced in her son’s movies as a whining, mean-spirited woman. In the 1989 film New York Stories, Nettie Konigsberg would be memorialized by her filmmaker son, Woody, in his vignette “Oedipus Wrecks” as a harpy mother who disappears, only to hang in the sky above New York City like a Bullwinkle balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, from which vantage point she leans down and continues to berate her bad boy.
He described her mother per Newyorktimes -“She gets up in the morning, as she has for years, she works in a little flower shop downtown, she rides the subway home, and she makes dinner. Beyond that she is not too interested in too many things.“
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“I remember you would hit me every day when I was a child,” Woody Allen is recorded saying to his mother in a documentary interview that is excerpted in Eric Lax’s 1991 biography of Allen. Nettie Konigsberg replies her son, in part, “I was very strict, which I regret. Because if I hadn’t been that strict, you might have been a more, a not so impatient. . . you might have been a—what should I say? Not better. You’re a good person. But, uh, maybe softer, maybe warmer.”
What happened to Woody Allen’s mother?
Nettie Konigsberg died on 27 January 2002 in New York, New York County, New York, USA. She was 95 years old at the time of her death. The cause of his death has not been revealed by the family, Nettie’s husband Martin Konigsberg passed away a year earlier. She was survived by her son Woody Allen, her daughter, the film producer Letty Aronson; eight grandchildren including – Ronan Farrow, Manzie Tio Allen, Bechet Allen, and Moses Farrow; and two great-grandchildren.
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