Editing Fred Allen (section)

==Broadway==
[[File:Portland Hoffa 1940 photo.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Wife [[Portland Hoffa]], 1940]]
Allen temporarily left vaudeville, moving to work in such [[Shubert Brothers]] stage productions as ''The Passing Show'' in 1922. The show played well in its runup to Broadway but lasted only ten weeks at the [[Winter Garden Theatre]]. [[Portland Hoffa]], who was in the chorus of the show, was eventually to marry Allen.<ref name="ReferenceA">Allen, Fred, Much Ado About Me, Little, Brown & Co., 1956</ref>

He received good notices for his comic work in several of the productions, particularly ''Vogues'' and ''Greenwich Village Follies'', and continued to develop his comic writing. He even wrote a column for ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' called "Near Fun." A salary dispute ended the column; Allen wanted only $60 a week (equal 
to ${{Inflation|US|60|1922|fmt=c}} today) to give up his theater work to become a full-time columnist, but his editor tried a sleight of hand, based on the paper's ad rates, to deny him. He spent his summer in Boston, honed his comic and writing skills even further, worked in a "respectfully" received duo that billed themselves as Fink and Smith, and played a few of the dying vaudeville houses.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Allen returned to New York to the pleasant surprise that Portland Hoffa was taking instruction to convert to [[Roman Catholicism]]. After the couple married, Allen began writing material for them to use together ("With a vaudeville act, Portland and I could be together, even if we couldn't find any work"),<ref name="ReferenceA"/> and the couple divided their time between the show business circuit, Allen's New England family home and [[Old Orchard Beach, Maine]], in the summers.<ref name="nyt5"/>