Next Monday night, the Film Forum in Greenwich Village will commemorate the 40th anniversary of "Annie Hall" with a tribute to actor Tony Roberts. For generations of New Yorkers, Robert's role in "Annie Hall" and five other Woody Allen films stand out in a career that's spanned more than five decades NY1's Budd Mishkin filed the following report.

Tony Roberts is a walking New York story; in the theater district, where he's done more than 20 shows —

"Got a cab, got out at that corner, ran through the audience standing here," Roberts recalled.

— or in front of his old elementary school, P.S. 6 on East 81st St., where he also did shows.

"The janitor approached me and he said, 'Hey, kid, you were very good, something is going to happen for you. But the next time you come on stage, make sure your fly is zipped up," Roberts said.

All Tony Roberts ever wanted to do was act — at P.S. 6, the High School of Music and Art, Northwestern University, and for the past 55 years, in movies, television, and on stage.

"The people who wake up in the morning and have to do something, because otherwise they wouldn't be who they are, are the luckiest people in the world," Roberts said. "And actors professional actors get up every morning and know that if they don't act soon, they are going to be extinct."

Tony Roberts is now known to a younger generation as the voice of the audio books of Stuart Woods.

For older New Yorkers, Roberts is best known for his roles in a half-dozen of Woody Allen's most celebrated movies, especially the 1970s classics "Play It Again, Sam," and the Academy Award winner "Annie Hall," in which he plays a character nicknamed Max.

"I don't know ultimately how to really explain whether it was a good thing that 'Annie Hall,' was an iconic film and I got identified with being Max to a lot of people," Roberts said.

"But then I was in six of his films, so naturally I would become identified as something by that, which may have kept other people from casting me in more anonymous roles."

Two other movies from that time solidified Roberts spot as a solid New York actor in great New York films. He played a mayoral advisor in the subway hostage film, "The Taking of Pelham 123."

"I was lucky because I was not in the subway; I'm in a mayor's office, and that was shot in one day," Roberts said. "I was so sympathetic to those people who had to be in the subway car for weeks on end in the heat."

And "Serpico," about a New York City police officer exposing corruption on the force.

"I remember walking into Elaine's after it had opened, and I hadn't seen Al Pacino since we'd been shooting, and he came bounding towards the front door," Roberts recalled. "He was like a kid, and he couldn't believe it, he said, 'We have a hit'"

Roberts's level of fame, occasionally getting recognized with a kind word on the street, is reflected in the self-deprecating title of his 2016 memoir, "Do You Know Me?"

"I've never been that big a star that I knew what job I was doing after the job I was doing, if you know what I mean," Roberts said. "Every job ended, and I said, 'What's the next job?' and I went through a lot of months without work, and I went through unemployment insurance several times, and then something else would come up."

Roberts self-published the memoir. He says several publishers were interested in the book, but only if he dished some dirt on allegations of child molestation against Woody Allen in the early 1990s.

Roberts says it was an easy call — to say no.

"I didn't want to go near it, for personal reasons because he's my friend and because, quite frankly, I didn't believe any of the aspersions that were made against him," Roberts said. "He has denied them, and I believe him."

Back when he was growing up on the Upper East Side, Tony Roberts was David Roberts; Anthony is his middle name. When the acting union told him there was already a David Roberts, he opted for Anthony, and then Tony Roberts.

His father was a famous radio host and announcer. Television star Milton Berle lived in their apartment building. "Milton dated my mother when they were in high school, so he was comfortable in our apartment," he recalled.

Roberts learned early on that he could entertain. Strangely enough, it first occurred to him while he was getting pummeled during a boxing match at summer camp, much to the enjoyment of his counselors.

"And I suddenly realized that if I staggered a little more than I had to, they would laugh harder, and I think that was the beginning of whatever comic instinct I was meant to have," Roberts said.

Roberts chalks up his long career — actually, any actor's career — to talent, drive, and luck. Luck was at work when he was an understudy in the Neil Simon play "Barefoot in the Park" in the early 60s.

"The guy I was understudying fell and broke his ankle on a Broadway show league baseball team, and I sat in the stands and watched everybody go run out onto the field to see if he was all right," Roberts said. "And in my head I said, 'Holy smoke, this is my big break.'"

Roberts held the role for 18 months and was on his way.

Roberts has an adult daughter from a former marriage. When I asked him if his success necessitated any sacrifices —

"I think actors who stay actors their whole lives don't have any regrets about being actors," Roberts said. "They became actors because they didn't want to stay inside and be just themselves; so they pretend."

But a half-century in movies, television and theater, much of it in his home town of New York, that's a pretty good run. 

"You don't know when it's happening to you, what it means until it is in the past; and you look back and you say, 'Holy smoke was I lucky; did I have a good career,' Roberts said. "And I'm grateful to be able to say that."