Actress Sian Barbara Allen, 78, died on March 31. Born Barbara Pokrass (yeah, I can see why she changed that), she earned a 1973 Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising New Actress in You’ll Like My Mother, in which she played a young autistic woman. Sadly, many of her best roles were in cheesy vehicles: Scream Pretty Peggy, Billy Two Hats, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case (as Anne Morrow Lindbergh), Smash-Up on Interstate 5. The wispy brunette (she looked like every girl I went to high school with) also turned up on such TV series as Alias Smith and Jones, Bonanza, The Waltons (she was John-Boy’s real life girlfriend at the time), Ironside, Hawaii Five-O, and Falcon Crest. Despite her talent and track record, Allen opted to retire from show business after giving birth to her daughter, Emily.
