Notable alum
You have to admire Jay Presson Allen, who grew up in San Angelo, attended Hockaday and became a success, according to IMDb. She also dashed her Texas roots and took on Manhattan in the 1960s. Allen became a playwright, stage director, TV producer, novelist and screenwriter (at a time when few women were screenwriters). Born in 1922, she died in 2006.
Three things to know:
1 Allen watched movies in a theater every Saturday and Sunday from 1-7 p.m. as a child. She said she left Hockaday, “having had no education to speak of.”
2 As a playwright, Allen wrote a dramatization of Muriel Spark’s novel “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Next, Alfred Hitchcock asked her to adapt Winston Graham’s novel “Marnie.” Additional projects included Bob Fosse’s “Cabaret” and Sidney Lumet’s “Prince of the City.”
3 Finally, Allen told the New York Times that the way to make a successful adaptation is to not “muck around with the essence” of the original work.
