Quick Facts
Biography
Judith Allen (February 8, 1911 – October 5, 1996) was an American film actress.
Early years
Allen was born Marie Elliott in New York City, and she grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts. She attended Leland Powers School in Boston and gained acting experience with a stock theater company.
Using the name Mari Colman, Allen worked as a commercial model in New York. That was where she was selected for a leading role in the film This Day and Age (1933). That role led to her name's being changed to Judith Allen. Robert S. Birchard wrote about the process in his book, Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, comparing it to "a comic sequence in David O. Selznick's 1937 production of A Star Is Born." Birchard related: "Mari Colman was subjected to the same treatment as DeMille and Paramount tested long lists of potential screen names.... Somehow, the name ultimately bestowed upon her was Judith Allen."
Personal life
Allen married wrestler Gus Sonnenberg in 1931 in New York City. They were divorced September 23, 1933, in Reno, Nevada. She married actor/boxer/singer Jack Doyle April 28, 1935, in Agua Caliente, Mexico. She filed for annulment March 15, 1937, in Los Angeles, California.
Selected filmography
- The Thundering Herd (1933)
- Too Much Harmony (1933)
- This Day and Age (1933)
- She Loves Me Not (1934)
- Young and Beautiful (1934)
- Night Alarm (1934)
- The Old Fashioned Way (1934)
- Behind the Green Lights (1935)
- The Healer (1935)
- Reckless Roads (1935)
- Burning Gold (1936)
- Beware of Ladies (1936)
- It Happened Out West (1937)
- Bill Cracks Down (1937)
- Texas Trail (1937)
- Telephone Operator (1937)
- Port of Missing Girls (1938)
- Four Girls in White (1939)