James B. Allardice was born in Canton, Ohio, the son of James and Lula
Allardice. He attended the College of Wooster where he wrote musicals
with James Wise, who later wrote the Broadway musical, "Dames at Sea."
While serving in World War II, Allardice wrote the play, "At War with
the Army." Following the war, he studied playwriting at Yale, where "At
War with the Army" was first produced. In 1949, the play opened on
Broadway. The play was bought by Paramount, and so Allardice moved to
Hollywood to work on the movie. Although they had been in two earlier
movies, Krach mit der Kompanie (1950) was the first movie in which the comedy team of Jerry Lewis
and Dean Martin received top billing.
In the early 50s, Allardice wrote original hour-long dramas which
appeared on such shows as the _"General Electric Theater" (1954)_ and the Lux Video Theatre (1950). He moved on to
write variety shows, including The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show (1956) and The George Gobel Show (1954), for which he won an
Emmy for Best Comedy Writing in 1955.
On the set of "Ann Sothern Show, The" (1958), Allardice met
composer 'Tom Adair', and soon after, the two began writing sitcoms,
including Ein Käfig voller Helden (1965), Meine drei Söhne (1960), and Die Munsters (1964). Allardice is perhaps best
known for writing the introductions for Alfred Hitchcock präsentiert (1955) which were performed by
Alfred Hitchcock. Not only did Allardice write the lead-ins for all 359 episodes
of the show, he wrote many of Hitchcock's speeches during the ten years
of their collaboration. In 1966, Allardice died of a heart attack at
the age of 46, and that year, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" ended its ten
year run.
