Updated: December 17, 2024

A graduate of New York's Columbia School of Journalism, Irwin Allen was a magazine editor, the producer / director of a radio show and the owner of an advertising agency before entering film production in the 1950s. His documentary, The Sea Around Us ( 1953 ), won an Academy Award. A successful TV series producer The Time Tunnel ( 1966 ), Lost in Space ( 1965 ), Allen was nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" in the 1970s due to the tremendous success of his two special effects-laden epics, The Poseidon Adventure ( 1972 ) and The Towering Inferno ( 1974 ).