Charme Allen

Charme Allen (born Charme Willa Wright,^[1] November 19, 1890 – October 4, 1980)^[2][3] was an actress in old-time radio, on television, and on the stage, as well as a pianist, best known for her long tenure as Aunt Polly on the radio serial David Harum.^[4][5][6] She was also the voice of Borden's Elsie the Cow at the 1939 World's Fair and the original narrator for the American Ballet Theatre's debut production of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.^[7][8]  

Born in Dayton, Ohio,^[1] Allen was the only child of Theresa Wolf and Charles A. Wright.^{[9][10][11][12]} She was performing in public as early as June 1902, when, at age 11, she was one of several piano students giving a recital at the studio of Lottie Schaeffer.^[13] By age of 16, she was listed in the Dayton business directory as a music instructor.^[14] Her interest in acting begin to develop shortly thereafter, as she attended the O'Brien School of Elocution and Dramatic Art. ^[15] However, in deference to the steadfast opposition of her mother (who envisioned her daughter as a concert pianist), she continued her musical studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music while restricting her dramatic endeavors to local summer stock, initially with the Wright Huntington Players and later the Manhattan Stock Company. As she later recalled, "I took the roles the others didn't want. They were servant and other character parts. I suspect they gave me more valuable training than the heroine got."^[16]

Following the premature death of her mother in 1912,^[17] and a catastrophic flood which destroyed her place of employment and nearly proved fatal, Wright abruptly wed her colleague and fellow Conservatory alumnus, Joseph B. Allen, and the couple soon relocated to Buffalo, New York, where they would reside for more than 20 years.^[16]

In Buffalo, Allen joined the musician's union and quickly found work with local pit orchestras. Shortly thereafter, she connected with drama instructor Jane M. Keeler at the Twentieth Century Club, where she studied for approximately five years before becoming a member of Keeler's Studio Theater Players.^[16]

In the table below is a chronological listing of some of Allen's more notable radio roles.

Although Allen never did get to realize her "fondest wish" (that being to "play on Broadway [and] show New York what I really can do"^[18]), she did manage to give New York—or at least its Off-Broadway contingent–at least one reasonably representative sample when she appeared in a 1948 revival of Lennox Robinson's Church Street, a one-act play presented by New Stages Inc. as the opening act of a double bill with Jean-Paul Sartre's The Respectful Prostitute. And while the critical consensus regarding the two pieces presented that night strongly favored the latter, that imbalance did not carry over into their assessment of performances, least of all as regards Allen. J.T.S. of The New Leader wrote, "This work is given a somewhat less smooth performance, but the women especially are good, from Florida Friebus as the fluttery and starving Miss Pettigrew to the soberly sharp work of Charme Allen as Aunt Moll."^[49] The Hollywood Reporter's Lee Rogow devoted so much space to Sartre's play that he had scarcely a paragraph left for Church Street, which he judged, in closing, "an overlong but interesting curtain-raiser [that] was illuminated by beautiful performances by Florida Friebus, Charme Allen, and Gertrude Corey."^[50] Similarly, Women's Wear Daily critic Thomas R. Dash, leaving himself little space to discuss Church Street, made sure to acknowledge the "superb portrayal by Charme Allen of the cantankerous yet highly intelligent Aunt Moll."^[51] Even the Times' Brooks Atkinson, who, alone among these critics, judged Church Street's presentation as harshly as he did the work being presented, exempted exactly one participant from this critique.

"'Church Street' turns out to be more charade than drama, and with the exception of Charme Allen's acting, the performance is typical of most non-commercial productions; the characters are always just sliding out of the actors' grasp."^[52]

In Dayton, Ohio, on April 7, 1913, prompted by their harrowing experience in that season's well-publicized flood, Charme Wright and her then employer, saxophonist/clarinetist and bandleader Joseph Brown Allen, were married.^[53][1][54] Their union produced one child, radio actress Willa Gene Allen,^[55] and lasted until her husband's death on June 9, 1962.^[56]

On October 4, 1980, Allen died following a long illness at age 89, at the Actor's Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, where she had moved ten years prior.^[8] Allen's remains are interred at the Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, in Dayton, Ohio.^[2]   

• Charme Allen at IMDb
• Charme Allen at Old Time Radio Researchers.