Steve Allen Served Up on a Spit

I have respected and admired Steve Allen for a long time, but he has lost some credibility with the generally sanctimonious prattle of his piece in Other Views (“Glamour Is No Drinking Companion,” April 22).

What a curiously innocuous context, using journalists “who extol alcoholism and excessive gambling as macho” as an excuse to take potshots at his peers.

To suggest that it’s “usually insecure actors, neurotic writers and other kinds of losers who are the objects of such admiring status” is, to say the least, abusively irresponsible and blatantly prejudiced (and from such a liberal thinker) not to mention redundant, as I know of few in the creative community who are not without some trace of insecurity or neurotic inclinations.

Steve says he is an “authority on comedy.” Are we to regard him then as somebody who (Funk & Wagnalls) “has the right to command and to enforce obedience” or has “delegated to him to have right or power”?

Steve, you sound like a boob without (I trust) having anything to drink, which is really regrettable.

HARVEY KORMAN

Los Angeles