Nancy Allen

She then played Donna Stratton in the Spielberg-directed comedy 1941 (1979).

Nancy Allen (born June 24, 1950) is an American actress.

Allen was born on June 24, 1950 in the Bronx borough of New York City, the youngest of three children of Eugene and Florence Allen.

Her father was a police lieutenant.

She came to prominence for her performances in several films directed by Brian De Palma in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Her accolades include a Golden Globe Award nomination and three Saturn Award nominations.

Allen's first major film role was as Nancy, Jack Nicholson's nervous date, in The Last Detail (1973), directed by Hal Ashby.

This inspired her to move to Los Angeles to continue her acting career.

Initially, Allen struggled to find acting jobs and was told by an agent that, being 25 years old, it "was over for her."

However, in November 1975, she auditioned for the role of the spoiled and popular mean girl Christine Hargensen in director Brian De Palma's horror film Carrie (1976), as the title character's chief nemesis.

After a protracted casting process (in which Allen was nearly re-cast at the instruction of the producers), she was officially given the role.

Her first major role was as Chris Hargensen in Brian De Palma's film Carrie (1976).

Allen was subsequently cast as the lead in the Robert Zemeckis-directed comedy I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), followed by a supporting part in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979).

Allen next appeared in the role of Pam Mitchell in Steven Spielberg's production of I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), which was director Robert Zemeckis's first feature film.

Allen married De Palma in 1979, and her subsequent portrayal of a prostitute who witnesses a murder in his feature Dressed to Kill (1980) earned her a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year.

She married "Carrie" director Brian De Palma on January 12, 1979, and over the next several years appeared in three more of his films: She starred as Kristina in Home Movies (1980) with Kirk Douglas, followed by her portrayal of prostitute Liz Blake in the thriller Dressed to Kill (1980).

For her performance, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year.

She then appeared in De Palma's neo-noir film Blow Out (1981), playing a woman implicated in an assassination.

She next starred in her last collaboration with De Palma, the neo-noir Blow Out (1981), playing a woman involved in an assassination that is audibly captured by a sound engineer.

In filming Blow Out, she had to overcome a lifelong fear of being trapped in a submerged car filling with water.

She appeared in the science fiction films Strange Invaders (1983) and The Philadelphia Experiment (1984), and Abel Ferrara's television film The Gladiator (1986).

In 1983, Allen starred as supermarket tabloid reporter Betty Walker in Strange Invaders, written by Bill Condon and co-starring Paul LeMat, Michael Lerner and Oscar winner Louise Fletcher.

Allen and De Palma divorced in 1984.

She and De Palma divorced in 1984.

That same year, two of Allen's films were released, The Buddy System opposite Richard Dreyfuss and Susan Sarandon and The Philadelphia Experiment opposite Michael Paré.

For her role in the latter, Allen was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actress.

Allen began dating Paré after the production.

She also hosted the documentary Terror in the Aisles (1984), which presents clips from various horror features, including Dressed to Kill and Carrie.

Paul Bartel's Not for Publication and Sweet Revenge, an action caper about white slavery with Gina Gershon and Martin Landau, followed thereafter.

Allen garnered mainstream fame playing Anne Lewis in Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (1987), a role she reprised for the two sequels.

Allen played police officer Anne Lewis in the science fiction/action classic RoboCop (1987).

The film, which was the Hollywood debut of Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, did extremely well at the box office.

Other credits include Poltergeist III (1988), Limit Up (1990), and Les patriotes (1994).

Allen stepped back from acting in 2008, and became involved in cancer support; in 2010, she was named executive director of the weSPARK Cancer Support Center in Los Angeles.

Allen was raised on 196th Street in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx.

Allen was a very shy child, so her mother enrolled her in dance classes when she was four.

She attended the Academy of Mount St. Ursula in the Bronx, before the family relocated to Yonkers.

Interested in modern dance, she attended the High School of Performing Arts for one year, where she trained for a dancing career.

She stated that her experience studying dance "ruined it" for her as it "became all about grades... I discovered that, while I loved to dance, it wasn't my life."

She subsequently enrolled at Jose Quintano's School for Young Professionals.