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 married woman, if possible." Her mother could see Allegra, he added, only with the "proper restrictions." Byron wrote to Hoppner in March 1821 that Allegra would receive better care in the convent than she would with him. His mistress, Teresa, Countess Guiccioli, had had a happy experience at the convent boarding school where she had lived from the age of five, and had persuaded Byron that a convent school would be the best place for Allegra. He also viewed the convent as the safest place for her with revolution brewing in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Allegra was doted