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 comfortable and would have a better chance at a good life if she lived with her father. "I have sent you my child because I love her too well to keep her," she wrote to Byron. Byron requested that her name be changed from Alba, which also related to "Albé," Clairmont's nickname for Byron, to Allegra, an Italian name meaning "cheerful, brisk" and relating to the musical term "allegro." During the journey to turn the child over to Byron, Clairmont wrote in her journal that she had bathed her daughter in Dover, but then crossed the passage out, as if