Jay Presson Allen Dies at 84

Jay Presson Allen, the noted writer and director whose Broadway credits included The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Forty Carats, and Tru, died on Monday, May 1 in Manhattan. She was 84 years old.

Born Jacqueline Presson in Fort Worth, Texas, she was already an accomplished novelist and screenwriter — having penned Alfred Hitchock’s Marnie — when she adapted Muriel Spark’s novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for the stage in 1968. That production won a Tony Award for Zoe Caldwell, who played the title role. The following year, Allen wrote the screenplay for the film version, which earned an Oscar for Maggie Smith; and she later worked on a short-lived British television series based on Jean Brodie, starring Geraldine McEwan. A New York revival of the play is planned for next season, to star Cynthia Nixon.

Twelve days after Jean Brodie closed on Broadway came the first preview of the hit Forty Carats, which Allen adapted from the French play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy; she later adapted another play by the same writers for the Broadway production A Little Family Business (1982), which starred Angela Lansbury and John McMartin. Allen wrote and directed Tru (1989), a solo show about Truman Capote that earned Robert Morse a Tony Award for Best Actor. Her last Broadway outing was as co-author and director of Tracey Ullman’s solo show The Big Love (1991).

Allen’s many other screenplay credits include Cabaret, Travels With My Aunt, Funny Lady, Prince of the City, and Deathtrap. She also reportedly worked on the Barbra Streisand remake of A Star is Born but received no official credit.

Her husband Lewis Allen, to whom she was married for almost 50 years, died in 2003. She is survived by her daughter Brooke and two grandchildren.