| Joan Allen  Born: 20-Aug-1956
Birthplace: Rochelle, IL
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Mother in Pleasantville Joan Allen is an actress on stage and film, familiar to moviegoers as Pat Nixon in Oliver Stone's Nixon, and as a reluctant swinger in The Ice Storm, among other roles. Hollywood doesn't have much use for older women, and Allen was almost 40 before she was famous, but she's made the most of her "average housewife" appearance. She played the mother of a chess genius in Searching for Bobby Fischer, a faux-Donna Reed in Pleasantville, and a widowed mother in The Upside of Anger.
Allen says she went into acting to overcome her shyness, so she could meet boys. Her first stage appearance came at age 14, as "girl with braces" in the school play Once upon a Playground. In college, she met John Malkovich, who worked with her in drama classes and invited her to join his upstart Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Allen dropped out of college, worked with Steppenwolf for seven years, and eventually moved to New York, where she won a Tony for her Broadway debut in Burn This. After her next play, The Heidi Chronicles, she married her co-star Peter Friedman.
Her film debut was in 1985's Compromising Positions, but she had a meatier, more memorable role in Manhunter, the pre-Anthony Hopkins introduction to Hannibal Lecter. In Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Allen was one of Kathleen Turner's high school friends.
The movie roles got progressively larger, until Allen's breakthrough opposite Hopkins' Nixon, which nabbed her an Oscar nomination. She was nominated again for The Contender, in 2000, as a vice presidential candidate who's controversial because she's [gasp] an atheist with a libido.
Father: Jeff Allen (gas station operator)
Mother: Dorothy Allen (housewife)
Husband: Peter Friedman (actor, m. 1-Jan-1990, div. 2000)
Daughter: Sadie Friedman (b. Mar-1994)
High School: Rochelle Township High School, Rochelle, IL (1974)
University: Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL
University: Northern Illinois University (1978)
John Kerry for President
Tony 1989
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Room (4-Sep-2015)
A Good Marriage (3-Oct-2014)
The Bourne Legacy (30-Jul-2012)
Hachiko: A Dog's Story (13-Jun-2009)
Death Race (21-Aug-2008)
Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh (27-Jul-2008) [VOICE]
Trumbo (10-Sep-2007) · Herself
The Bourne Ultimatum (25-Jul-2007)
The Rape of Europa (12-Nov-2006) · Narrator
Bonneville (11-Sep-2006) · Carol Brimm
The Upside of Anger (11-Mar-2005)
Yes (4-Sep-2004)
The Bourne Supremacy (15-Jul-2004) · Pamela Landy
The Notebook (20-May-2004) · Anne Hamilton
Off the Map (22-Jan-2003)
The Mists of Avalon (15-Jul-2001)
The Contender (10-Sep-2000) · Laine Hanson
When the Sky Falls (26-Jun-2000)
All the Rage (11-Sep-1999)
Pleasantville (17-Sep-1998)
Face/Off (27-Jun-1997) · Eve Archer
The Ice Storm (12-May-1997)
The Crucible (27-Nov-1996) · Elizabeth Proctor
Nixon (20-Dec-1995) · Pat Nixon
Mad Love (26-May-1995)
Josh and S.A.M. (24-Nov-1993)
Searching for Bobby Fischer (11-Aug-1993) · Bonnie Waitzkin
Ethan Frome (12-Mar-1993) · Zeena
Without Warning: The James Brady Story (16-Jun-1991)
In Country (7-Sep-1989)
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (12-Aug-1988)
All My Sons (19-Jan-1987)
Peggy Sue Got Married (10-Oct-1986) · Maddy Nagle
Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid (Sep-1986)
Manhunter (22-Aug-1986)
Compromising Positions (30-Aug-1985)
Evergreen (24-Feb-1985)
Official Website:
http://www.joanallen.com/
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