Triple threat Tim Allen comes to Pala next week

Tim Allen – stand-up comedian, author and television and movie star – will take the stage at Pala casino Saturday night in his only scheduled Southern California show.

Allen’s Jan. 30 performance comes about three weeks after the release of the first movie he has starred in, produced and directed. “Crazy On The Outside” – which also features Sigourney Weaver, Ray Liotta and Kelsey Grammer – may have an autobiographical flair.

Allen, 56, perhaps gained his greatest exposure as the star of ABC’s Home Improvement from 1991-1999. But a pair of books and a string of successful movies also helped cement his place in pop culture.

In the same week in 1994, Allen anchored the highest-rated TV show, starred in the number one movie in the nation with “Santa Clause” and his book – Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man – topped the New York Times Bestseller List.

“That was such a critical mass of timing; I suppose, difficult to achieve, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that goes down in history,” Allen wrote on his Internet site. “When I’m long gone, maybe it’ll be a Jeopardy question.”

Besides the TV show, that movie and the book, Allen has starred in a string of other hit movies that include “Toy Story,” “The Shaggy Dog” and “Wild Hogs.” Several of his movies were followed by popular sequels. His 1997 book, I’m Not Really Here, also became a bestseller.

Allen’s books are largely biographical and touch on growing up, gender differences, humorous incidents and midlife issues.

Allen was born in Denver and had the given name of Timothy Alan Dick. His father was killed in an automobile accident 11 years later. His mother remarried her high school sweetheart in 1964, and the newlyweds and their blended family of nine children lived in Michigan.

Allen’s first book touches on his arrest for selling drugs in 1978, the same year he married his first wife. He did a brief stint in prison, and examined that period in the “Eddie Haskell syndrome” chapter of his first book. The name of the chapter refers to a character in the popular “Leave It to Beaver” television show that aired from October 1957 until June 1963.

The title of Allen’s first book refers to his prison experience.

“Once you lose your freedom, you never want to lose it again,” Allen wrote in the book. “”Prison was the best and worst thing that happened to me. It taught me in no uncertain terms to be responsible for my own actions.”

Humor helped Allen survive incarceration, and prison gave him the time and built-in audience needed to hone his stand-up act, he wrote.

In his current movie, Allen’s character is “fresh out of prison and ready for a second chance,” according to promotional materials That second change, however, is marked by string of challenges that confront Allen’s character, “Tommy.”

Tickets for Allen’s Pala show range from $45 to $85. Performance tickets and more information are available by calling (877) 725-2766 by visiting http://www.palacasino.com. Pala Casino is located on State Highway 76 about five miles east of Interstate 15.

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