Allegra Kent Allegra Kent Allegra Kent (born August 11, 1937) is an American ballet dancer, actress, children's book author and columnist. Iris Margo Cohen was born to Jewish parents, Harry Herschel and Shirley (née Weissman) Cohen, and later changed her name to Allegra Kent. 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". She describes her Wisznice-born immigrant mother as feeling "neither European nor American; she was ashamed of her
Allegra Byron let Clairmont see her daughter and they thought of ways to regain custody of her. Clairmont was alarmed by reports in 1820 that her daughter had suffered a malarial-type fever and that Byron had moved her to warm Ravenna at the height of the summer. Clairmont wrote that Allegra must be moved to a more healthy climate if she was to survive and pleaded with Byron to send their daughter to her in Bagni di Lucca, a town with a cool mountain climate. However, Byron didn't want to send Allegra back to be raised in the Shelley household, where he