What is more surprising, however, is Allen's natural ease as an actress, projecting a convincing warmth and vulnerability that often supercedes her upfront sexuality.
Encouraged by her parents to try modeling to counteract her shy personality, as a teen Allen became a Budweiser Girl, appearing on countless posters, calendars, magazine ads, etc. After graduating from the University of Texas with a major in education, she was briefly a school teacher before she decided to pursue an acting career in California. After arriving in Los Angeles, she quickly landed a role on the CBS daytime soap "The Bold and the Beautiful."
However, Allen had also made a career decision that might have ultimately derailed the serious ambitions of another actress when she agreed to star in a serialized erotic revival of French novelist Emmanuelle Arsan's sexually uninhibited character Emmanuelle. Allen played the lead role in 1994's "Emmanuelle In Space," which amounted to little more than an unending series of soft-core sex vignettes strung together by an absurd storyline in which Emmanuelle teaches space aliens the joys of sex and love. The actress appeared frequently in the nude and displayed all of her natural (and possible unnatural endowments) and yet even in this unrepentant tripe she projected an unexpected likeability and sincerity that, when the series eventually surfaced on U.S. pay-cable and home video, won her legions of admirers well after her career took a more "legitimate" turn.
Allen made her first major impact as an actress in 1996 when she joined the cast of the daytime serial "Days of Our Lives" assuming the role of the ever-troubled Billie Reed (first played by Lisa Rinna), where Allen's emotional work proved all the more impressive given her overtly sensual looks. Proving as popular with female viewers as male, she remained on the soap until 1999, making sporadic-but-memorable appearances in motion pictures such as the comedy "Liar, Liar" (1997), in which she plays the buxom girl in the elevator to whom Jim Carrey can't help but tell the truth, no matter how lascivious.
Television proved to be fertile ground for Allen, and she snared guest spots on many series, including "Married With Children," "Pacific Blue," "Arli$$," "Friends," "Spin City," "Charmed," "Smallville," "Frasier," "Two and Half Men" and a brief recurring role on "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation." The actress increased her fan base dramatically with a guest shot on a 2000 episode of the cult favorite "The X-Files" titled "First Person Shooter," where she played Maitreya, a buxom Lara Croft-style computer-generated video vixen who comes to life, as well as the sultry actress the CGI bombshell was based on. She also turned a recurring guest spot on "Baywatch Hawaii" into a regular role as Jenna Avid, the troublemaking lifeguard-turned-lawmaker in the tight yellow swimsuit (2000-2001).
Allen finally got her big break in a major motion picture when George Clooney cast her in a brief but important role in his directorial debut "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." In the film she plays a beautiful, seemingly sexually available woman swimming in the pool at the Playboy Mansion who shocks game show producer Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) by blisteringly articulating all the things he hates about his role in the pop culture. Next up was a role opposite two more Hollywood heavy hitters, Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler, in the dark comedy "Anger Management" (2003), followed by a turn as a holographic woman in the John Woo directed thriller "Paycheck" (2003) and a string of lower profile films in 2004.
In 2005 Allen proved to be the revelation of the Steven Soderbergh-George Clooney-produced HBO series "Unscripted" which drew heavily on her real-life persona, including using her actual name, career details and her life as a single mother (her son Jake Morritt appeared with her on the show) struggling to evolve out of sexpot roles and emerge as an actress of serious craft. Not surprisngly, the series provided the proof of the actual Allen's depth and talent.
Allen enjoyed a sideline as a clothing designer: to express her political opposition to President George W. Bush, she designed a line of panties that read "No More Bush" which proved solid sellers in the trendy L.A. boutique Kitson. She followed up with a t-shirt line titled SexBrand, with tops emblazoned with messages like "You Were Never My Boyfriend," "On the Wrong Side of 30" and "My Mom Says I'm a Catch."