Marty Allen Fast Facts

Monday, Nov. 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

AGE: 74.

OCCUPATION: Entertainer.

"HELLO DERE": It was an accident! Early in his career, he walked onto a stage and went blank. "So I said, 'Hello dere,'" he recalls. The audience laughed. "So I said it again. The audience reacted and it caught fire. You wait your whole life to find a catch phrase like that." How widely known was it? Ask Britain's Princess Margaret, whom Allen met in London once. "I said 'Your highness,' and she said, 'Hello dere!' It knocked me for a loop!"

MR. CLEAN: "That's the way I am. You can have a little suggestion, but you don't have to resort to sick humor. I think some comics think anything goes. But to stand up and tell dirty jokes, to use dirty words -- to me that's not real comedy."

THE ACT: "The response (to the Westward Ho shows) has been utterly tremendous." Why? "The singing, the dancing, the rapport between us. The routines are things people can relate to."

CREATIVE PROCESS: "You have to make the front page the funny page," he says. Reading the paper, he circles items that springboard good jokes. Then, late at night, he writes, "between 12 and 2 in the morning," he says.

BIG ACT TO FOLLOW: What does a comedian say when he appears on "The Ed Sullivan Show" after the Beatles? "Hello dere, I'm Ringo's mother."

RECENT READING: "Rewrites," a memoir by Neil Simon; the autobiography of late German actor Klaus Kinski, and "I Remember Paris," by Art Buchwald.

NOT FADE AWAY: "I don't believe in retirement. What do you do? You should keep on going as long as (audiences) relate to you. If you have a gift to make people laugh, you should continue the gift."

OK, ONE LAST JOKE: Little old man sees a little old woman and she's completely naked. He says, "My wife has a suit just like that. Hers needs pressing, too."