Rae Allen

Rae Allen, born Rae Julia Theresa Abruzzo on July 3, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American actress whose work spanned stage, film, and television across approximately seven decades. Her parents were Julia, a seamstress and hairdresser, and Joseph Abruzzo, an opera singer and chauffeur whose brothers performed in vaudeville. Allen trained at the HB Studio in Greenwich Village and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1947. She was married twice, first to John M. Allen and later to Herbert Harris, both marriages ending in divorce.

Allen's theatrical beginnings came in 1941, when she appeared in a Gilbert and Sullivan production at the age of fifteen, playing Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore. Her Broadway debut followed in 1948, launching a stage career that continued through 1972. Among her Broadway credits were Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game, Oliver!, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Fiddler on the Roof, Pictures in the Hallway, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, and Dude. She received three Tony Award nominations over the course of her career: Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Damn Yankees in 1956, Best Featured Actress in a Play for Traveller Without Luggage in 1965, and Best Featured Actress in a Play for And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little in 1971, winning the award for the latter production.

Allen transitioned into film and television work beginning in 1958, when she recreated her Broadway role as the nosy reporter Gloria in the film adaptation of Damn Yankees. Her subsequent film appearances included Where's Poppa?, A League of Their Own, Stargate, and Reign Over Me. On television, she took on recurring roles in the sitcom All in the Family from 1972 to 1973 and the mob drama The Sopranos in 2004. Her television work also included appearances on Car 54 Where Are You, The Patty Duke Show, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, Head of the Class, Grey's Anatomy, and two episodes of Seinfeld, in which she played unemployment counselor Lenore Sokol.

Allen died on April 6, 2022, at the age of 95, at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement community in Woodland Hills, California.