Last Updated on March 25, 2023

Joan Allen Biography

Joan Allen is an award-winning American actress. She began her career in 1977 with the Steppenwolf Theatre. In 1984, she won the Drama Desk award. In 1988, she won the Tony Award. She is also a three-time Academy Award nominee.

Her other film roles include:  Manhunter in 1986, Peggy Sue got married, still in 1986, Tucker: The Man And His Dream in 1988, Nixon in 1995, The Ice Storm in 1997, Face Off in 1997, Pleasantville in 1998, The Bourne Supremacy in 2004, The Upside Of Anger in 2005, The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, Death Race in 2008, and The Bourne Legacy in 2012.

Alongside her roles, she also has won the Canadian Screen Award in 2015. She has also performed in the Broadway plays; The Heidi Chronicles in 1988, Impressionism in 2009, and The Waverly Gallery in 2018.

Joan Allen Age

She was born on the 20th of August, 1956 in the Rochelle, Illinois, U.S. She is 62 years old as of 2018.

Joan Allen Height

The American actress stands at 5ft 10in. This is 1.78m or 178cm.

Joan Allen Family

She is the daughter of Dorothea Marie and James Jefferson Allen. Her mother, Dorothea, is a homemaker whereas her father, James, owns a gas station. She is the youngest in their family. She has one brother, David, and two sisters, Mary and Lynn.

Joan Allen Ex Husband

She was married to Peter Friedman (American stage film and Television actor) in 1990. Early 2000, the couple started having problems in their relationship. In 2002 they got divorced.

Joan Allen Daughter

Together with her Ex-Husband, She bore one Daughter, Sadie, born on February 1994. The pair live close together so as to share their daughter.

Joan Allen Career

She began her acting career as a stage actress and on television. She then went ahead and made her first film debut in the 1985 movie ‘Compromising Positions’. She became a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1977. In 1984, She was awarded a Clarence Derwent Award for her performance in ‘And A Nightingale Sang’.

She won a Tony Award in her performance in ‘Burn This’ in 1989. She starred in the play ‘ The Heidi Chronicles’. She then received an Academy Award nomination for her work in ‘Nixon’ in 1995. She was also nominated for Best actress for ‘ The Contender’ in 2000.

She had starring roles in ‘The Ice Storm’ and ‘Face Off’ in 1997 as well as in the comedy ‘Pleasantville’ in 1998. She starred in ‘The Mists Of Avalon’ in 2001. She got a leading role in in the comedy-drama ‘The Upside Of Anger’, and The Bourne Trilogy. She also appeared in ‘Death Race’.

Allen returned to Broadway in March 2009, where she played in Impressionism at the Gerald Schoenfield Theatre. In  2015, she signed for the leading role in the Drama series The Family’.

Joan Allen’s Notable Movies

Face Off

Here she played the role of Dr. Eve Archer. The film stars John Travolta as her Husband and Nicholas Cage as the antagonist. Archer (Travolta) takes the face of Troy (Cage) in order to convince Troy’s brother to direct him to a bomb set somewhere in the city. The film takes a twist when Troy wakes up from his coma and forces the doctors to give him Archer’s face.

The Notebook

Here she is given the role of Anne Hamilton, mother to Allie, who is in love with Noah. She disapproves of their love until Noah goes and joins the army to fight through the World War II. The film is based on a 1996 novel by Nicholas Sparks. The story is narrated in the present day by an elderly man telling it to a fellow nursing home resident.

The Family

The film stars her as the Mayor of Red Pines. She is shown to be an ambitious and overly manipulative character. The film follows upon the return of her son who disappeared a decade earlier.

Bourne

Here she plays the role of the CIA deputy director in all three Bourne films. The trilogy revolves around Jason Bourne, a CIA assassin who suffers from memory loss. He is desperately trying to figure out who he is.

Room

She performs as Nancy Newsome. Her daughter, Joy, and grandson, Jack, were locked up in a room for seven years by Joy’s husband. They finally escape and, for the first time in his life, Jack experiences life outside the room, as they called it. They now begin life on the outside.

The Crucible

Here, she played as Elizabeth Proctor, married to John Proctor. A former lover of John bewitches Elizabeth who then goes unconscious for a while. After this ritual is discovered, trials are made to find out who is the witch.

Nixon

She plays the role of Pat Nixon, wife to Richard Nixon. The film is a biographical examination of former U.S. President Richard Nixon. The story touches his youth, personal, professional and political life.

Yes

Throughout the film she is unnamed, she stars as a bored wife of a British politician. She finds out that her husband is having an affair. She meets a Lebanese exile working as a chef at an elegant dinner party in London. He becomes her lover but their cultural differences keep them apart.

Joan Allen Facelift

Joan has been known to have performed a facelift in order to reduce the effects of aging on her beauty. Before she looked better, but it seems the surgery she went through was overly done thus doing more harm than good. Looking at her before and after pictures, we can clearly see the difference created by the procedure.

Joan Allen Before and After

Debbie Allen Joan Allen

Debbie Allen is also an American actor. She is however not related in any way with Joan. It just so happens that they have similar names.

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