1. Billie Allen was an American actress, theater director, dancer and entertainer.
23 Facts About Billie Allen
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Billie Allen was one of the first African Americans to appear on television commercials in the US Billie Allen was one of the earliest African-American actors on daytime soap operas as she appeared in the mid-1950s as the character Ada Chandler on the popular daytime soap opera The Edge of Night.
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Billie Allen was known for her work on Broadway and off-Broadway.
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Billie Allen was born Wilhelmina Louise Billie Allen on January 13,1925, in Richmond, Virginia.
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Billie Allen's father, William R Allen, was an actuary, while her mother, the former Mamie Wimbush, was a teacher.
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Billie Allen attended the Hampton Institute, now known as present-day Hampton University.
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Billie Allen then moved to New York City during the mid-1940s to pursue acting and dance.
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Billie Allen was cast as a dancer in several Broadway productions early in her career, including the 1947 musical review Caribbean Carnival; a Broadway revival of Four Saints in Three Acts in 1952; and My Darlin' Aida, an adaptation of a Giuseppe Verdi opera, which opened in 1952.
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Billie Allen appeared with one of her mentors, the legendary Ethel Waters, in the revival of the off-Broadway production of Mamba's Daughters.
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Billie Allen was accepted into the Actors Studio, where she studied under the renowned acting teacher and actor Lee Strasberg.
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Billie Allen made her film debut with the 1949 race film Souls of Sin.
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Billie Allen was later cast as understudy in the part of "Beneatha Younger" in the 1959 Broadway premier production of playwright Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.
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Billie Allen later assumed the full-time role of "Beneatha Younger" when actress and friend Diana Sands exited the role.
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Billie Allen befriended several members of the cast, notably actress Ruby Dee, with whom she shared a friendship that lasted over 55 years.
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Billie Allen later directed her lifelong friend Ruby Dee in the 2001 off-Broadway dramatic play Saint Lucy's Eyes, which premiered at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York and was later staged and directed by Allen in the early 2000s at Atlanta, Georgia's Alliance Theatre.
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In 1960, Billie Allen portrayed a maid in the Broadway debut of Ira Levin's Critic's Choice.
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Billie Allen appeared in James Baldwin's Blues for Mr Charlie, a 1964 dramatic play loosely based on the killing of Emmett Till.
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In 1973, Billie Allen joined with actor and founder Garland Lee Thompson, Jr.
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Billie Allen received a Lucille Lortel Awards nomination in 2006 for directing Funnyhouse of a Negro, a ground-breaking one-act play by Adrienne Kennedy, in 2006.
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Billie Allen had originated the role of the lead character "Sarah" during the play's debut in 1964.
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Billie Allen was awarded in 2006, The Rose McClendon Trailblazer Award from the Classical Theatre of Harlem.
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Billie Allen died peacefully at her home in Manhattan, New York City, on December 29,2015, at the age of 90, just 15 days shy of her 91st birthday.
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Billie Allen was survived by her son and daughter, Duane H Grant, Jr.