An actress best known for memorable turns in some of the 1970s and ’80s’ most enduring horror and sci-fi favorites made a rare public appearance in Los Angeles this week.
The 76-year-old performer first rose to prominence in the mid-1970s, landing a standout role in a landmark screen adaptation of one of Stephen King’s best-known horror novels.
She went on to marry that film’s director — a filmmaker whose credits include projects with Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Al Pacino — and later collaborated with him on three additional movies.
Her career found fresh momentum in the 1980s when she starred in a blockbuster sci-fi action film that launched multiple sequels and introduced an unforgettable robotic law enforcer.
More recently, she has stepped away from the spotlight, choosing instead to focus on advocacy work for cancer patients and their loved ones.
Think you know who it is?
The actress, celebrated for her roles in classic horror and sci-fi films of the 1970s and ’80s and once married to a famed director, was seen during a rare Los Angeles outing this week on her 76th birthday. Can you name her?
It’s movie star Nancy Allen!
The Bronx-born beauty was pictured out in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 24, which happened to be her 76th birthday.
She rocked a cool and casual look with a baby blue cardigan and high-waisted flared jeans that wouldn’t have looked out of place during her rise to fame in the ’70s.
After an abortive attempt to study dance in high school, she turned to acting and scored her first significant role in 1973’s The Last Detail, in which she played the date of Jack Nicholson, who starred as a Navy sailor escorting a younger sailor to a naval prison.
Despite appearing opposite one of the biggest stars of the decade in what became a beloved film, Allen struggled to find work in its wake.
After two years, she had almost come to terms with Hollywood’s lack of interest when she took a gamble and auditioned for an adaptation of Stephen King’s bestselling debut novel, Carrie, which was to be directed by Brian De Palma.
De Palma – who is part of the so-called ‘Movie Brats’ generation of New Hollywood talent that included Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Paul Schrader – saw something in Allen and cast her as Christine Hargensen.
The character and her no-good boyfriend (played by John Travolta) terrorize Sissy Spacek’s title character, eventually egging her on to a telekinetic spree of murderous revenge that incinerates nearly everyone at her high school prom.
She’s film star Nancy Allen! The Bronx-born beauty starred in classics including Carrie (pictured), Dressed To Kill and Blow-Out
She rocked a cool and casual look with a baby blue cardigan and high-waisted flared jeans that wouldn’t have looked out of place during her rise to fame in the ’70s
Allen’s breakthrough was in 1976’s horror hit Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma from the bestseller by Stephen King. She starred in the film with Sissy Spacek as the title character and John Travolta
Carrie was a critical and commercial hit and firmly established Allen’s place in Hollywood.
She followed it up with roles in Zemeckis’s Beatlemania comedy I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) and Spielberg’s misbegotten wartime comedy 1941 (1979).
Allen and De Palma had struck up a relationship, and she married the director in 1979.
The two went on to collaborate on three more films while married: Home Movies, the slasher classic Dressed To Kill (both 1980) and Blow-Out (1981).
Allen was honored with the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year for Dressed To Kill, an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, in which she played a sex worker who helps to solve a brutal murder with the help of the victim’s teenage son and her therapist (played by Michael Caine).
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Blow-Out reunited Allen with her Carrie costar John Travolta, who played a movie sound designer who uncovers a murder – and the roots of a deadly governmental cover-up – on one of his audio recordings.
While the film was appreciated by critics and is now considered one of De Palma’s greatest works, it was a box office bomb that failed to make back its money and set back Travolta’s career for years to come.
Allen and De Palma went on to divorce in 1984.
In 1979, Allen married De Palma, and they went on to make three more films before divorcing in 1984: Home Movies, the slasher classic Dressed To Kill and Blow-Out
Allen reunited with Travolta in 1981’s Blow-Out (pictured). He played a sound designer who accidentally captures a murder – and it’s deadly cover-up – on an audio recording
The film was a hit with critics but bombed at the box office, though it is now acknowledged as one of the high points of the decade; pictured with John Lithgow in Blow-Out
She continued working steadily throughout the ’80s, but on lower-prestige films that failed to make an impact at the box office.
That all changed in 1987, when Allen starred in Paul Verhoeven’s science fiction/action film RoboCop.
The ultra-violent thriller starred Peter Weller as a police officer murdered by a criminal gang, only to be revived as a cybernetic crime fighter by an ethically challenged corporation.
Allen played his partner, both before and after his resurrection, and she went on to appear in RoboCop 2 (1990) and RoboCop 3 (1993).
During her run in the hit series, Allen married for a second time. She and the comedian Craig Shoemaker tied the knot in 1992, but the marriage was short-lived, and they divorced just two years later.
One of Allen’s last significant roles was in Stephen Soderbergh’s 1998 crime rom-com Out Of Sight, which starred George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez.
The same year, she married the builder and contractor Randy Bailey, whom she would separate from in 2005 and divorce two years later.
In 2008, a year after her divorce, Allen largely stepped away from the film industry and instead focused on more fulfilling work as an activist and advocate.
Allen rose to prominence again in 1987’s hit sci-fi/action satire RoboCop (pictured) and starred in it’s two sequels. But in the late 2000s she gave up the film industry and focused on a more fulfilling calling as an advocate for cancer pateitns and their families
Her friend, I Wanna Hold Your Hand costar Wendie Jo Sperber, had founded the weSPARK Cancer Support Center in 2001 to support cancer patients and their families, but after her death in 2005 from breast cancer, Allen was inspired to take up her cause.
In a 2011 interview with Media Mikes, Allen spoke about how her friendship with Sperber – who also appeared in 1941 – changed her.
‘She was the kind of friend… everybody has one of them… that even if you don’t see each other for months, when you finally talk to them you pick up… it’s almost like you never skipped a beat,’ she said. ‘Knowing her changed my life.’
In 2010, the former actress took over as executive director of the weSPARK Cancer Support Center.
In the same interview, Allen said she was seeking a new purpose just when Sperber shared her passion with her.
‘Her asking me to participate and help launch her weSPARK Cancer Support Center came at a time in my life where I was not really happy with the work that I was doing,’ Allen admitted. ‘I didn’t like the projects that were coming my way. I was very unfulfilled.’
The former actress went on to marvel at the new direction her life had taken
‘That is what I do. That is what my life is dedicated to. I’m there, I run it. I’ve created the whole program format… I fundraise. It is my life’s work,’ she said. ‘If someone had told me ten years ago that this is what I would be dedicating my life to now, I would have said, “Are you kidding? I don’t know anything about this stuff. I don’t know how to do that!”‘
