Allegra kent biography

American dancer

Allegra Kent (born August 11, 1937) is an American ballet dancer, actress, children's book author and columnist.

Life and career

Iris Margo Cohen was born to Jewish parents, Harry Herschel and Shirley (née Weissman) Cohen, and later changed her name to Allegra Kent.^[1] Kent grew up in what she later described as a dysfunctional environment.

In Once a Dancer: An Autobiography, she describes her Texan father – "who liked to substitute 'Cowboy' for Herschel" – as having "a gambler's soul and a restless nature".^[2] She describes her Wisznice-born immigrant mother as feeling "neither European nor American; she was ashamed of her [own] parents.

She borrowed a neighbor's working papers and took a job at twelve. By fourteen, she was teaching ballroom dancing at night in someone's private home, mostly to Japanese men".^[3]

Born in Santa Monica, Kent studied with Bronislava Nijinska and Carmelita Marac