She is not, in other words, a pushover. Raised in Houston, the daughter of a dentist and an artist who divorced when she was 4, Allen dreamed of becoming a ballerina and took up to 10 classes a week. She went on to study Greek at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and in 1972 joined her sister, Phylicia Rashad, 39, Cosby's TV wife, in New York. Allen won a Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination in 1980 for her performance as the lead, Anita, in a Broadway revival of West Side Story and that same year landed the role of the demanding dance teacher in the film Fame. In 1982 she began a six-year reprise of the part for TV. She directed 11 episodes of the show and won two Emmys for her choreography. When Cosby tried to hire Allen for the premiere season of A Different World, she turned him down. No time. She had just finished starring in Broadway's Sweet Charity and was off to London to choreograph the musical of Stephen King's Carrie. The show opened in New York to a scathing review in the New York Times. "That wasn't a critique," says Allen, "that was a blowtorch." After the show closed, Cosby repeated his offer. "My agent said the producers wanted to have a meeting. I said 'About what?' Tell them to make me an offer and let's go to work."