Here is historical background information about Henry Clay Allen and his ancestors which is contained in a biography I wrote about myself for my alma mater, Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
It is particularly relevant because it describes the European ancestors of the Allen family and what happened to some when they came to North America.
I am Henry Clay Allen's great-grandson, the son of his grandson, Foy Ray Allen (1911-2003) and the grandson of this daughter, Etta Anna Allen Cudd (1885-1919).
Here is my biography, which provides historical material about Henry Clay Allen's family:
BIOGRAPHY OF
DAVID ROGER ALLEN
(NOTE: This is about my life before and after I entered Antioch College in 1962. It was prepared for the
www.Antioch-College.Edu website, alumni section, where Antioch College, Ohio, alumni are asked to write biographies of themselves.)
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I was born in New York City, NY on January 18, 1944 and write this from the farm where I presently live in Freeland, MD. Contact information for me is at the end of this self-written biography (an autobiography, actually).
My earliest known ancestors were pre-Christian era Russians who were part of the Alan tribe of Russia, and came to be known as the "Alans." They were an ancient people with several thousand years of known history. They had their own language, were originally a short, handsome people known for the beautiful and voluptuous women in their tribe of whom they were famously proud, and showed off readily to visitors and strangers.
In the 13th century AD, these people established their own independent country called "Alania," which had its own government. It lasted several hundred years, then was absorbed into the expanding Czarist Russian Empire.
Alan history begins well before the time of Christ. The first records describing the Alans were created by Han Dynasty of China, which sent (northern) silk-road traders through Alan territory near the Caspian and Black Seas, and created records describing the Alan inhabitants they met and traded with (the Alans sold the Chinese horses.)
In pre-historic times, the Alans of SE Russia intermarried with the Goth invaders from Scandanavia who had made their way to the Alan homeland in SE Russia by way of the Vistula River from the Baltic Sea, then by way of the Danube River into the Black Sea.
The intermarriage of the Alans with the tall and hardy blonde and blue eyed Northern European Goths made the Alans much taller and larger individually. They became more combative, and in time were famous as soldiers and experts with military or cavalry horses.
My surname, "Allen," is a 13th century changed variation of the oldest continuously used surname in Europe, "Alan." The surname "Alan" continued use after the 13th century as a first or "Christian" name, and in England, persons previously surnamed "Alan" became known as "Allen," and this included those I descend from.
Originally, before the time of Christ, the "Alan" tribe was located in present day SE Russia near the present day city of Rostov, on the Caucasus Mountain foothill plains between the Caspian and Black Seas, near the Sea Of Azov. The Alans were famous for raising and selling military or cavalry horses to the Chinese, Arabian, and Parthian armies.
Alans and their descendants continued horse interest and activity as they migrated to western Europe, England, then to North America.
The long tradition of horse raising continued into the current century in my part of the Allen family. My great uncles (Frank and Clint Allen, brothers of my great-grandfather Henry Clay Allen [1857-1945])operated the Allen Brothers Horse Farm in Seymour, Baxter County, Texas, immediately south of Wichita Falls, Texas. They provided the finest horses available in northern Texas and also operated livery stables in both Wichita Falls, TX and Amarillo, TX. Later my father worked for a decade as a race track detective in Maryland and elsewhere, and my first job was as a clerk in a racetrack police office my father supervised at the Baltimore Raceway Trotting Racetrack, now closed.
Famous Roman historians Lucan and Josephus wrote about problems the Alans caused the eastwardly expanding Roman Empire during the time of Christ, and about the Alan homeland north of the Caucusus Mountains from which the Alans travelled to the present day Mid-East through the "Gate Of The Alans," a famous passage way through the Caucasus Mountains connecting flat land in Russia to the North and flat land in the Mid-East to the South. The Alans fought against the Romans, and Nero recruited an army of Romans all taller than 6 feet in the famous "Caucasian Expedition" meant to invade the Alan homeland and defeat them. Nero failed.
The Alans fought against the Romans, and the earliest known named Alan was a Captain in the Balkans named "Safrag" (which means "Black Stripe," a reference to the coloring of his horse) during the 4th century. Alans joined the Romans temporarily to defeat Atilla The Hun on the plains of Champagne, France in 451 AD (along with the Visigoths), then joined the Visigoths under Theodoric to defeat the Roman Empire finally in 476 AD.
Many Alans then migrated to northern France, which they settled in Brittany and became Christians. St. Alan of Quimper, Brittany, France (located directly "under" or south of England) was a famous Catholic bishop in 500 AD. Another "St. Alan" in France lived during the 7th century, and was the abbot of a monestary near and north of Toulouse, France, near the Mediterranean Sea.
The chief aristocrat of Brittany in 1066 AD was and Alan descendant named Count Allain du Fergeant, who was a vassal to William the Conqueror, and Williams Chief General. Alain's cavalry horses are depicted in the famous Tapestry Of Bayeux which shows French horses being shipped across the English channel to participate in the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD which was the horse battle which won William The Conqueror the throne of England, where he was crowned William I on Christmas Day 1066 AD and appointed Count Alain du Fergeant of Brittany his Earl Marshall ("keeper of the king's horses"). Alain also became "Alan, First Earl of Richmond (Yorkshire)," and in 1072 AD built the Allen Castle on 6 acres of ground in Richmond, York Co., England, which still stands. The "keep" of the castle is 11 feet thick and stands 100 feet high.
Allain du Fergeant became the first "Earl Of Richmond (Yorkshire)" in England, and established the "House Of Richmond." Centuries later, Henry Tutor, the Duke of Richmond, a descendant of Allain du Fergeant, won the Battle Of Bosworth Field, a horse battle in 1485 against England's King Richard III, and was created King Henry VII, the first of the House Of Tudor kings. This man was an Alan descendant, as were all his progeny in the Tudor family, including British royalty's notorious King Henry VIII (who had 6 wives), and ending with his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I who died in 1603 and ended the Tudor dynasty.
Alan, First Earl of Richmond was assigned stewardship of 738 manors in England (land rental provided income for him and the king), and one of these was Chartley Manor in Staffordshire, on which my earliest known Allen ancestor, George Alleyne (Allen), was born in 1460 AD, 32 years before the arrival of Columbus in North America.
George Alleyne (1460-1540) is my direct descendant. I know the history of 18 generations which separate me from him.
I was born in New York City, went to Virginia when I was six months old, and moved to Baltimore, Maryland when I was four years old.
My parents, Foy and Dorothy Allen, were both American born descendants of English "WASP" emmigrants. My mother is "half-English" and is also descended from German immigrants to the USA.
My father's family, on the Allen side of his family, arrived in Virginia in 1654 from Canterbury, Kent County, England and were founders of New Kent County, Virginia near Richmond, Virginia. I trace my direct line of English ancestors on my father's side back to George Allen (1460 Staffordshire, Chartley Manor-1540). (See the entire list of 18 generations on
www.RootsWeb.Com by inputting the eight search words "Henry Clay Allen Foy Roy Allen Spur Texas" on the home page of that website. The entire text of Baltimore SUN Md Newspaper obituaries describing lives of both my parents appears in the same location).
The father of the first American immigrant from England I am descended from was the Rev. Dr. Richard Allen III (BA, MA, BD, DD Corpus Christi College, Oxford U.) born in 1575, died in England in 1651. He was a Church Of England clergyman and rector of St. Mildreds Church in Canterbury, Kent Co., England.
My father was also descended from pre-USA Revolutionary War era English immigrants to America with the surname "Cudd." His father was named "Otis Joseph Cudd" (1880TX USA-1919CA USA) and married Etta Anna Allen (1885TX USA-1919CA USA) in 1905 at the Lone Grove Baptist Church in Lone Grove, Oklahoma near the Texas state border.
My father's earliest known "Cudd" descendant was Jonothan Cudd of South Carolina USA, who served as a USA Revolutionary War soldier under Captain Fancett with the South Carolina Militia. His son, John Cudd, served as a Corporal in the War of 1812, and was granted bounty land for that service by the USA Federal Government, 80 acres in Alatala County, Mississippi. The family still possesses the Land Grant Document signed in 1852 by then USA President Franklin Pierce.
John Cudd moved to Mississippi in 1852 with his wife, Sarah, and their grown son, Frederick Cudd.
Frederick Cudd and his wife were parents of my father's grandfather, John Martin Cudd (1859MS USA - 1914TX USA) who moved to Decater County TX after the Civil War, and married Eva Bailey Crawford (1865TX USA-1941TX USA) in 1877 when she was 17 years old. She lived, before she was married, in LaVaca County, Texas, immediately next to Decater County, Texas.
Their first child, Otis Joseph Cudd (above), was born in 1880, and was my grandfather.
He went on to become a ranch manager in the early 1900's, and was famous in North
Texas for lassooing a 5 foot long mountain lion from a horse at full gallop in order to save the lives of two very small children the wildcat stalked and was about to attack and kill. He dragged the lassooed (and very angy and dangerous) mountain lion for one mile before letting the rope which held the cat go, and continuing to gallop the horse away from the mountain lion, which chased him, but never caught him.
He obtained employment with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad in Amarillo, Texas, and was promoted in time to the job of "Conductor," which was very reponsible.
His wife, Etta Anna Allen, was a highly cultured person trained for many years in classical piano music and theory. The couple moved often due to the railroad job Otis Cudd held, but always had a well tuned piano in the family home which Etta Allen played for the children and guests visiting the household. She bore 6 children, Juanita, Velma, Foy (named "Frederick Richard" at birth in 1911), Lyndall, Helen, and Joseph.
Both of my father's parents died in the Influenza Epidemic of 1918-19 within three days of each other when the family lived in Bakersfield, CA USA. My grandmother died on January 6, 1919, on my father's 8th birthday. The six children were totally orphaned, and family members were dispatched from Texas to go to California and return the children to Texas. Henry Clay Allen (1857-1946) mortgaged his Spur, Dickens County, Texas farm for $400. to pay the expenses of rescuing and re-locating the orphaned children.
My mother's ancestors emmigrated from Germany before the USA Civil War, and also from Northumberland County near the Scottish border of England and arrived in the USA more recently in 1903. Her German grandfather, Henry Hoppman Sr. (1837Germany-1931Schnectady NY USA) was Chief Locomotive Engineer of the New York Central Railroad (Empire State Express...broke the world land speed record at 112 mph in 1893). Her mother, Dorothy Dobinson Hoppman Moore (1886 North Shields, Northumberland Co., England - 1976 Croton, NY USA) spoke with an English accent I remember well.
My great-grandfather was named James Dobinson, was married to an Irish born woman from County Galway named Catherine Connoley. He worked as a cabinet maker in Northumberland County, England. The family life much of the time in North Shields, North Umberland County, England, where my grandmother, Dorothy Dobinson, was born in 1886, and lived until she emmigrated permanently to the USA in 1903.
She obtained employment as a domestic childcare worker in the Schnectady, NY USA area, where she met her future husband, Henry Hoppman, Jr. , a typewriter manufacturing mechanic and assembly specialist from Schnectady, who had attended Union College in Schnectady for one year, been a US Army veteran during the Spanish-American War of 1898, and was from a prominent German-American family which had helped found the General Electric Company in the 1880's (his Uncle Frank Hoppman was in charge of the GE "piecework" dept.), and also had ties to the New York Central Railroad, particularly the Albany NY USA to Buffalo NY USA run. His father, Henry Hoppman Sr. rose to become Chief Locomotive Engineer of the "Empire State Express" and other trains owned by the NY Central RR.
My mother's cousin was Bob Keeshan, who became "Captain Kangaroo," a 1950's and 1960's national TV children's show celebrity. His mother was Elsie Hoppman Keeshan, my mother's cousin.
My parents were partners is a successful Maryland based security (uniformed guard) business first called Master Detective Agency, later called Master Security Inc., which they started in 1957 which still exists, and is the largest of its kind in Maryland. I was a co-op job worker there during my days at Antioch College in the 1960's. They were both licensed private detectives in the state of Maryland for more than 30 years. Both lived into their 90's, and lived to see the 21st century.
I grew up in a modest "row-house" neighborhood in NE Baltimore City at 1500 Pentwood Road during the years when that city was legally racially segregated. Frank Zappa, later a famous musician, was a playmate of mine when I was seven years old, and he was 10 years old.
I was schooled at first in Baltimore City, Maryland USA public schools. When I attended them, they were considered part of one of the best public school systems in the USA. I learned basis skills well and also participated from grade 4 through grade 12 in skilled, multi-part choral singing which required knowledge of note reading, and ability to sing advanced classical choral music.
I continued my Baltimore schooling through graduation from Baltimore City College High School, founded in 1838, the USA's third oldest public high school. I was an honor student there, part of the school's famous "Accelerated Course" for advanced students, and active in many drama productions in high school first as a stage crew member (I became president of the stage crew), and later as a lead school play actor in my senior year (I played Anne Frank's father, Otto, in THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK in January of 1961, my senior year...later Hollywood TV star of LA LAW, Michael Tucker, was my understudy in that play).
I then attended the University Of Virginia in Charlottesville VA where my best friend was John Casteen who went on to become President of the University Of Virginia in 1990 (still is as of 2005) and my room-mate was David Jeddie Smith, who became a widely published poet and English professor at Louisiana State University. I studied writing and English composition with Richard Dillard (later husband of Pulitzer Prize winning author, Annie Dillard who wrote PILGRIM AT TINKER'S CREEK in 1974).
While I was at U. of VA., I met and interviewed prominent author William Faulkner, then "Writer In Residence" at the University Of Virginia, who spoke before my English composition class. The best classroom training and quality of teaching I had in 20 years of education occurred during my one year at the University Of Virginia, and I will always be grateful for that. I was elected to the "Dean's List Of Distinguished Students," an honor only one other person in my UVA dormatory hall achieved, and was very honored by this election.
I remained at U. VA. for one year, after which I transferred to Antioch College in Ohio where I was awarded a Bachelor Of Arts degrees in Education in 1966. During my time at Antioch College, I studied mass media, film and television with Antioch grad Rod Serling, then on the Antioch faculty. I also participated in the Antioch College co-op job work program, and completed job assignments at the National Opinion Research Corp. at the U. Of Chicago, Clearwater Ranch For Handicapped Children in Philo, Calif. near San Francisco, the Yale U. Medical School Psychiatric Institute in New Haven, CT., and Washington DC Public Schools where I worked as a Special Education Teacher for one semester. I completed these work assignments between 1962 and 1966 along with conventional college classroom studies. In addition, I was active as a leader of the Antioch College student social program organized by the Community Government at Antioch, and was leader and teacher of the International Folk Dance program which was famous at Antioch in the 1960's. I also learned to play the guitar and lead group folk singing which was popular among Antioch students in the 1960's. I studied classical piano for 4 years in Baltimore before my college years privately with Baltimore piano teacher Marshall Anders. Later I learned to play the Ukelele.
I missed my Antioch College graduation ceremony on June 18, 1966 because my U.S. Army service started on June 7, 1966! I had no choice about the start date of my military career. I got drafted into the US Army as a conscientious objector in 1966, served in it as a combat medic (i.e. I was a Conscientious Objector who served in the US Army after training in a special Conscientious Objectors' unit which led to further training and service as a combat medic), got out, worked for about one year in NYC as an NYC Govt. Social Services Case Worker. I was first assigned to the Bronx, then promoted to a special caseload of drug addicts, prostitutes, and recently released prison inmates in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, NY.
I met co-worker, Judith Goldwasser, and wrote words and music for a planned (never produced) musical comedy about her titled MISS GOLDWASSER, YOU LOOK BETTER WHEN YOU'RE NOT. Later, I wrote a one-act play titled THE SOCIAL WORKER about her and me in Brooklyn. It was produced on Hollywood's Evergreen Stage Theatre in 1970, and starred me and actress Julie Gilbert-Goldsmith.
During that year I lived in Manhatten's Lower East Side "East Village" neighborhood, became very interested in serious musical composition, audited composition courses at both the Julliard School in NYC and also at the New School For Social Research. I was very interested in the compositions of Julliard professors Vincent Persichetti and Carl Berio, and rented a piano I had hauled up to my 6 floor walkup apartment at 272 E. Seventh Street near Tompkins Square Park. I learned notation writing, and composed a good bit of piano solo music during my year in NYC.
I moved to San Francisco CA. I was married happily but briefly to Pat Rosso of Birmingham, Michigan but the marriage was annulled after less than one year.
Seven years later, in 1976, I was married a second time to Kathleen Welsch of Tonawanda, New York but that marriage was also annulled after less than a year. One child, Timothy Nicholas Allen, resulted from my marriage to Kathleen Welsch. He was born in 1977 and raised by his mother, who remarried in 1980 to Craig Locke of Clarence, NY, who presently (2005) works as a Vice President for
www.Dynabrade.Com, his father-in-law, Walter N. Welsch's business. My marriage to Kathy Welsch broke up in 1976 because I refused to work for Mr. Welsch, then my father-in-law. His daughter, then my wife, left our house and our marriage the day after I announced this, and sought to annul our Catholic marriage only weeks later. Her father wanted Kathy's husband to work for him, and the husband she married in 1980 still does.
In 1968, after moving to California from New York, I worked briefly as a business forms "outside" salesman for the San Franscisco branch of the National Cash Register Company. I prepared for this job with special training at NCR's headquarters office in Dayton, Ohio, during which I won an award for "Best Sales Presentation" during the training of my class. I worked during 1968 at that job, then started a 10 year (on and off) career in public relations starting in 1969 in San Francisco, where I got work as a Warner Bros. field movie publicist. During my time in San Francisco CA, I acted in locally produced Shakespeare plays (I played Theseus in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM), met many movie stars in the course of my movie publicity work, and became interested in movie acting. Academy Award Nominee Rupert Crosse (nominated in 1969 for Best Supporting Actor in the movie titled THE REVIERS starring Steve McQueen) encouraged me to go to Hollywood to learn movie acting and movie production.
In 1969, I started my own public relations company in San Francisco CA USA called "DAVID ALLEN INTERNATIONAL," and my first clients were the "Mr. Roberts Of San Francisco" Ladies Fashion (Clothing Manufacture) Company, and "DRUG ALERT," a non-profit anti-drug abuse information charity started by the brother of a San Francisco teenager who had committed suicide while taking then illegal
"LSD" drugs, very popular among San Francisco hippies in 1969. I publicized the Mr. Roberts ladies clothes by sending San Francisco celebrity/movie publicity photographer, Bill Cogan, to Paris where I had hired a Paris based Public Relations consultant named "Pierre Miolon." The two of them set up ladies fashion photo shoots ar famous Paris landmarks, and the project was called "Mr. Roberts Goes To Paris!" It was very successful, and doubled the Mr. Roberts income within one year.
I made enormous money as an independent public relations consultant in San Francisco, and used it to leave the city to go to and live in Hollywood as a beginning actor and student of feature movie making.
I went to Hollywood and did movie acting for two years. I acted first in a UCLA student feature film production, and played the role of the TV studio cameraman. I had no lines. I also acted in plays at the Evergreen Theatre in Hollywood, and performed with actress Julie Gilbert-Goldsmith, later book author of UMBRELLA STEPS (1972 Random House), and also EDNA FERBER: A Biography (1980's). Edna Ferber was her great-aunt. I studied acting with both Charles Conrad and Jack Waltzer, and met then unknown actress Penny Marshall during a Charles Conrad acting class, and became good friends with her and her then boyfriend, actor Rob Reiner.
I got a job as a travelling salesman selling educational (16 mm movies) film to school systems with a Pasadena, CA company then called BARR FILMS. After that, I did similar work for FILMS INC. of Chicago, and still later for AIMS MEDIA INC. of Hollywood CA. I was the SE USA regional sales manager for FILMS INC. based in Atlanta GA, and the NE USW regional sales manager for AIMS MEDIA INC. based in Manhatten, NYC, NY.
After that, I worked for the Behrens Co. of Coconut Grove (Miami) FL. selling children's films and programming to local TV stations all across the country. Bob Behrens, owner of the Behrens Co., created a series titled FRIENDS intended to replace violent cartoons for children with more wholesome programming. Violent cartoons on TV had come under attack in the 1970's, and alternative programming for children was needed.
During my time in New York City in the 1970's, I acted in and produced several small movies, including THE MINNESOTA AFFAIR: News From Twinkee Point, Minnesota starring me and Marsha Keene (later Thomas); THE DAZZLING NYC REDHEAD starring Debbie Hutchins with me as camera man and script writer. Later in the 1970's, I produced a movie in the Washingon DC area titled SENUOUS WORDS FROM A SILENT MOVIE GIRL, an experimental film starring beautiful, blonde, voluptuous Vickie Lee Running, as Washington DC "government girl" who stared into a running movie camera I held, and "mouthed" sensuous words...sensuously!
I returned to public relations and got into corporate/financial PR jobs with Commercial Credit Co. of Baltimore MD. From there I got an offer to join a new public relations company in Canada called "ABKS Communications Group" in Toronto which specialized in financial PR. Toronto was then replacing Montreal Canada as the financial center of the country, and Canada had become the only major country in the world where persons outside Canada could bring all the money into the country they desired, no questions asked. Only small island Carribean banking operations (the Cayman Islands, the Dutch Antilles, etc.) offered this service. Even Switzerland had tightened up its previously "loose" money tracking standards, which left Canada the new home of enormous sums of internationally moved around money.
I immediately got Deak And Company of Canada as an account for ABKS Group, and soon after was asked by the Deak Co. leaders in Canada to start my own business called "David Allen Associates," with Deak and Co. as my start off and major client. I accepted this offer, ran my own private company during 1976, and added other private and non-profit organizations to my list of clients to a total of about a dozen clients, including Canadian Acceptance Corporation, the Canadian Diabetis Foundation, the (Roman Catholic) Archdiocese of Toronto Canada, Right To Life Organization of Toronto, Alliance For Life (the network organization for Right To Life Organizations all across Canada), the Open Circle Theatre, and several others. The business I started in Canada in 1976 was extremely successful. It ended when my marriage broke up, and I became so absorbed in the events which ended my marriage, I did not have the energy to continue the new business, which had been very demanding.
I got a transitional "bridge" job as sales manager for Commonwealth Holiday Inns Of Ontario, sales managed two suburban Toronto Holiday Inn Motel locations (sold meeting space and convention programs, mainly), then was promoted to sales manage the main Holiday Inn location in downtown Toronto Canada next to Toronto City Hall, one of the city's major multi-storey hotels (not just a small motel).
I returned to public relations as a payroll employee manager at Royal Insurance Co. of Canada in Toronto, Canada, briefly worked as public relations manager of Sunnyvale Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, the largest hospital in Canada located in Toronto, and finally was recruited by Northern Telecom Inc. of Canada. I was hired to be the replacement Senior Vice President of Public Relations and Advertising by the then retiring Senior VP at NTI. Months after I was hired for this plum job in 1979, NTI initiated a massive corporate downsizing effort, effectively eliminating 2/3rds of middle and senior managers. The rule from the Board Of Directors was "most recently hired, first fired." This was my catagory, so I lost my job before I had been on it for one year.
I decided I was sick of the whole corporate hustle. Didn't want any more work in corporations.
Spent about 6 years (starting in 1980) trying to earn my living at low end jobs....retail sales jobs, entertainer work, local government bureaucrat jobs, etc.
Entertainment jobs I had included night club MC and stand up comedy work with the Comedy Club of Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC, the Peabody Book Shop Night Club in Baltimore, Maryland (where I played and sang satirical songs accompanying my singing on a piano). I also worked as a comic and MC at two exotic dancer clubs in Pittsburgh PA, including the Palace Theatre there, which had once been a famous vaudeville theatre. Later I worked at the Free Times Cafe on College Street in Toronto, Canada, where I wrote original topical folk songs about Canada I recorded, published (in print booklet form), sold, and performed at the Good Times Cafe. I worked as a performer also at Mints Night Club of Niagara Falls, Canada, located in what had once been a hotel which was the headquarters of the Canadian National Government a century before. I was a comic and exotic dancer there, the lead act every Saturday night at 11 PM. The club had two parts, one which featured exotic female dancers for a male audience, and the part where I worked which featured exotic male dancers for a female-only audience (mostly women in their 20's). Later, I was promoted to manager of the club.
Went to grad school in 1987 and got a library sci. Master's degree at the U. of MD., was elected to the Beta Phi Mu International Library Science Honor Society (the "Phi Beta Kappa of Library Science") but found almost no work when I got the degree in 1989. Worked as a contract library director for the U.S. Govt. Treasury Dept. in Wash. DC (Bureau Of Engraving And Printing) running their paper science research library. Got fired when I asked that the perpetually broken down computer in the library be replaced. It's easy to fire a government contract worker! Worked at other part time library jobs in the Baltimore area on Sundays, nights, etc. Designed small libraries for non-profit associations (including the Farm Animal Reform Movement Association of Bethesda MD, the Association of Major Corporate Research And Development Scientists of Washtington DC, the Baltimore MD Association For Retarded Citizens, and the Marvin Mordes Private Art History And Research Library of Baltimore MD (Baltimore MD is my home town...I lived there before entering Antioch in 1962).
Did more part time, low level non-library work, and moved to a farm in rural Maryland my father owned in 1994. I still live there. Been on the same farm for 11 years, mostly living alone.
I began collecting feature and documentary movies on video tape in 1988, have acquired a large collection of movies, and have become an amateur movie history scholar. I married Antiochian Debby Woodroofe '68 in 1999, but it didn't last, and we divorced in 2001. She lived on the farm with me for a year.
Although I was married three times, and a child resulted from the second marriage, my first two marriages were annulled by both the Catholic Church and the states, respectively, of California and New York. This meant that, technically, my first two marriages were declared invalid and never to have existed in the first place, and therefore that my only "valid" marriage was to Debby Woodroofe in 1999. Therefore, technically, I have been married only one time, to Debby Woodroofe.
In recent years, I've worked as a movie history teacher at Baltimore MD USA area colleges (adjunct teacher), as a movie actor in Hollywood movies shot in the Baltimore MD/ Washington DC are on location, and also as a labor organizer for regional movie actors in the USA middle Atlantic states from Philadelphia to Richmond VA and places in between, east of the Appalachain Mountains.
I used the "stage and screen name" "Yazz Cudd" after my father died in 2003 for about a year. He was born with the surname "Cudd," and began to use his mother's maiden name, "Allen" as his own surname when he relocated from Texas to New York City in his 20's in the 1930's. He later changed his name legally to "Allen," and "Allen" is the surname for both him and I on my NYC, NY Dept. of Health issued birth certificate. I returned to using my birth name, "David Allen," for acting and other work I've done starting again in 2005.
I am clerk of the "Movie Actors' Co-op Organization" ("MACO" is the initialism for that group), an alternative to the Screen Actors' Guild, the biggest movie actor union. MACO is not a labor union. It is a mutual self-help group for regional movie actors, many of whom also do stage acting.
Here, FYI, is my recent (2005) resume of movie acting jobs:
"Resume for "DAVID ALLEN, Actor "
Movie Actor Experience Since Age 18. Professional Paid Movie Actor Experience Since Age 26 In Hollywood.
Contact Information:
21257 Mikules Manner Lane, Freeland (Baltimore), MD 21053
(30 miles north of Baltimore City near I-83, 1 mile from PA)
(410) 357-5858,
DavidAllenUSA@Yahoo.Com Recent roles: Executive, supervisor, professional, tuxedo, suit wearing type
40+, handsomer than average
6'0" Tall, 165 lbs, Blue Eyes, Brown Hair, WASP ethnic-social background, College Grad (Antioch College, Ohio)
"MOST RECENT EXPERIENCE CREDITS:
"Feature Motion Pictures:
XXX: STATE OF THE UNION (2005 Columbia Pictures) Washington DC Diplomat/"Suit"
SYRIANA (2005 Warner Bros.) Oil Millionaire Businessman (Tuxedo), Rich Fat-Cat Businessman (Blue Suit), CIA Division Chief (Grey Suit)
THE WEDDING CRASHERS (2005 Avery Pix Co.) Wash. DC Socialite
SOMETHING THE LORD MADE (2004 HBO MOW) Hopkins Physician
BEAUTY SHOP (2004 Version Starring Kim Whitfield) Rich Businessman "Television Series Episodes:
WEST WING TV Series (2004 Warner Bros) President's Camp David Chef
THE WIRE TV Series (2004 HBO) -- Camden Yards Stadium Baseball Fan
THE SERVICE TV Pilot (2004 Disney/ABC) US Secret Service Supervisor
"Television Commercials:
INFINITI Car Commercial (2004) Upscale Showroom Customer
"Training/Schooling:
20 Years of Schoolin' ending w/ a U. of MD Masters Degree
Also Actor Training: Charles Conrad and Jack Waltzer, Hollywood. Workshops with Lee Strasburg, Stella Adler, and Uta Hagen (Studied acting and worked in Hollywood CA two full time years.)
"School Honors:
Nat. Honor Society (High Sch.),
Dean's List of Distinguished Students (University of Virginia),
Beta Phi Mu Honor Society (University Of Maryland)
"Non-School Honors:
US Army Honorable Discharge,
US Army National Defense Service Medal for "Active Military Service During A Period Of War Or National Emergency"
"Professional Association:
Movie Actors' Co-op Org. (Clerk, Editor: MACO Weekly Bulletin)
"(Interesting Ancestors Of David Allen, including 1 actor, 2 private detectives, 1 clergyman, and 2 soldiers:
James Robert Allen [1884TX-1970NV], movie actor founding member of SAG in 1933;
Foy [1911TX-2003MD] and Dorothy[1910NJ-2005GA] Allen, David's parents, licensed Maryland USA private detectives more than 30 years;
Rev. Dr. Richard Allen, D.D., [1572KentCoEngland - 1651KentCoEngland], Kent Co. England Church Of England rector with 1608 Oxford U. doctorate;
Wm. Carr Allen [1725VA-1789VA] USA Rev. War soldier;
James T. Allen [1832TX-1900TX] Civil War Confederacy soldier.)
"Bk.Author of:
MARYLAND CINEMA/ MARYLAND MOVIES History (2004)
"College Level Movie/Cinema History Teacher, Towson University (MD), Community College Of Baltimore County (MD)" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hobbies: Guitar and Ukelele Playing, Gardening, Classic Movie Collecting