Trivia

Parents: Dorothy Allen, a housewife, and Jeff Allen, a gas-station owner. Her father died in 1995.

Chosen as Most Likely to Succeed by friends when graduating from high school.

Has won many Stage awards and won a Tony in 1989 for her debut Broadway performance in Burn This.

Ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Mother of Sadie Friedman (born 1994), with Peter Friedman.

Won the 1988 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for her Broadway debut in Lanford Wilson's "Burn This." She was again nominated the next year (1989) in the same category for Wendy Wasserstein's "The Heidi Chronicles.".

Mother was a homemaker and father was a garage attendant.

Her father was of English, German, and Scots-Irish (Northern Irish) ancestry. Her mother's family was German.

Her Boston terrier is called Nora.

Transferred to Northern Illinois University in 1976 whence she graduated.

Joan has two sisters: Mary Allen (b. 1940), Lynn Allen (b. 1954) and a brother named David Allen (b. 1943).

Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1986" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 38. (1986)

Has worked with two "Hannibal Lecters." She appeared in the first Lecter film, Manhunter (1986), with Brian Cox. She later played Pat Nixon in the film Nixon (1995), opposite Anthony Hopkins. Brian Cox later appeared with her again in The Bourne Supremacy (2004).

She was nominated for a 1990 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Principal Role in a Play for "Reckless" at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois.

Studied acting at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston under Glendon Gabbard.

She was awarded the 1983 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Principal Role in a Play for "And a Nightingale Sang", at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois.

She was awarded the 1986 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Principal Role in a Play for "A Lesson from Aloes", at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois.

She was awarded the 1987 Drama Logue Award for Outstanding Performance for "Burn This" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

Graduated from the same university as Dan Castellaneta, Justin Mentell, and Matt Ricci.