'Fame’ star’s many talents

Press, 17 June 1988, Page 11

'Fame’ star’s many talents

“Fame” star Debbie Allen has a loyal international following as the dance teacher Lydia Grant in the drama about life at the New York School of the Arts. The show made Allen a household name in the United States, and her accomplishments in the media of stage and film are considerable as well. Allen has won two Emmy Awards for her choreography on “Fame,” and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series as Lydia Grant. She also choreographed, directed and starred in the stage show of “Fame,” which toured throughout Europe in 1983. Alien made her Broadway debut in 1979, and in the same year she received a prestigious Drama Desk Award and her first Tony nomination for her work in “West Side Story.” Last year she was again nominated for a Tony after appearing in “Sweet Charity” on Broadway, while working on the present series of

“Fame” at the same time. Allen managed to squeeze in some “extracurricular” television work in 1985, when she appeared on two major awards ceremonies within six weeks; performing a colourful rendition of “America” on the Grammy’s salute to Leonard Bernstein and the Academy Awardnominated song “Footloose” for the Oscars. That same year, she co-wrote, choreographed and starred in “Dancing in the Dark,” a one-hour television special. Allen was recently seen on the big screen in Richard Pryor’s 1986 film “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling,” and her other feature films include Milo Forman’s “Ragtime” in 1981 and “The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh” in 1979, which she also choreographed. Debbie Allen has an equally famous sister in Phylicia Rashad (previously known as Phylicia Ayers-Allen), who stars as Cliffs wife Ciair in “The Cosby Show.”