LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Joan Allen
built 633 days ago
NEW YORK - Joan Allen snuggles her slim form under a bulky jacket to ward off the chill. Her winter-pale features are makeup-free. She looks more frazzled than she does as the steely first lady opposite Anthony Hopkins' driven-by-demons president in Oliver Stone's Nixon.
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Allen, the youngest of four children, was born in Rochelle, Illinois to James Jefferson Allen, a gas-station owner, and Dorothea Marie (née Wirth), a homemaker. She has an older brother, David, and two older sisters, Mary and Lynn.[1] Allen attended Rochelle Township High School, and was voted most likely to succeed. She transferred to Northern Illinois University in 1976, where she graduated. Allen began her performing career as a stage actress and on television before making her film debut in the movie, Compromising Positions (1985).
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[S]he is an Irish-born girl, woman, who at the age of 10 came to join her parents in America," Allen says. "So she is Irish and American, and she meets this Middle Eastern man and begins having this romance with him. And then over the course of time, as in many relationships, the cracks sort of start emerging and the cultural issues in this particular relationship come to the forefront."
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Joan Allen currently teaches corporate scriptwriting at Towson University. Ms. Allen is the founder of Celebrating Single Seminars, and is the owner of Upper Crust, a catering company in Baltimore. She ... conducts cooking classes for singles. She resides in Baltimore, Maryland.
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No one really knows why, but Allen turned tail in 1976 and left Eastern for Northern -- anyone familiar with higher education in Illinois knows it couldn't have been because she wanted to go to a better school. She probably endured the humiliation of being a Huskie to work at Steppenwolf, which she joined in 1977. There, she was molded and defined as an actress and in her off time worked as a secretary.
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In The Contender, Allen received her first lead actress Oscar nomination, as a vice-presidential nominee embroiled in a sex scandal. One sensed complete identification with the part: Though the scandal threatens her political future and personal life, she remains calm and self-contained, refusing to give in, demonstrating courage and heroism based on firm commitment to moral principles.
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