Success Wears Heavy On Tim Allen

Tim Allen, who in the past year has rewritten the standard for success in show business by headlining a No. 1 television show, writing the No. 1 best-selling book and starring in the No. 1 movie all at the same time, said he had been thinking a lot about despair lately - and he’s not setting up a punch line.

“Time magazine did a cover story on despair a few weeks ago,” he said. “This is the most creative time I’ve ever had in my life and yet I feel like I’m half empty, the tank is half empty.”

Others might see a tank that runneth over with high-octane fame, money and celebrity. Allen’s career is so full he has missed the past two vacations from his show working on other projects.

But Allen has more on his mind than an endless celebration of his successes. Though his comic persona, both from his long years as a stand-up comedian and his role as the Tool Man on “Home Improvement,” is that of an amiably goofy male chauvinist, Allen is a thoughtful and highly competitive man, aware of both the power his stardom has brought him and how fragile that stardom can be.

“All the energy it took to get here, I don’t think I’ll have it again. It slides down, and that realization causes this very subtle but sinister despair.”

If he is despairing, it hasn’t stopped Allen from endlessly jotting down ideas for comic bits on any available scrap of paper or staying in constant touch by Powerbook with his “Home Improvement” staff in Hollywood.

Nor does it in any way diminish a competitive fire that burns with the intensity of a big-time college football coach. He has a thing for being No. 1.

“All of business and all of sports want to be No. 1,” he said.

Allen’s perspective is colored by a feat he calls the “trifecta.” He can cite exactly when it happened: the first week of December 1994. That Tuesday, “Home Improvement” finished in its usual No. 1 position in television, and that weekend his movie for Disney, “The Santa Clause,” became the top movie at the box office.

It was also the week his book of observations on male life was at the top of the New York Times best-seller list.

Allen’s competitiveness was severely tested this past season by ABC’s decision to move “Home Improvement” out of its unassailable position on Wednesdays at 9 to Tuesdays at 9. ABC felt it needed its biggest weapon to stave off the challenge of “Frasier,” which NBC had moved against ABC’s “Roseanne.”

The “Home Improvement” shift allowed ABC to hold on to its winning position on Tuesdays, but it cost Allen’s show a second year as television’s highest-rated series. It fell to third place.

What makes finishing third particularly galling for Allen is that the show on top was NBC’s “Seinfeld.” Allen’s competitive heart clearly beats fastest of all when that show and star are moved to the television line of scrimmage.

The extra insult for Allen is the press’s fondness for “Seinfeld” and what he feels is a lack of respect for his show. That same inequality, he believes, plays out in the Emmy Awards, in which “Home Improvement” has been notably snubbed.

Allen himself was not recognized this year by a nomination for best actor in a comedy. “It doesn’t change my money or anything, but it irritates me,” Allen said. “I’m in that group. To say one of those guys is a better actor than the others - well, who’s really acting here?”