Debbie Allen Reflects On Fame, Love Boat, Grey's Anatomy, S.W.A.T. And More
"Every day is not just a rehearsal for The Nutcracker. It's a rehearsal for the rest of your life," Debbie Allen emphatically tells dance students in Netflix's new special, Dance Dreams: The Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. And don't be surprised if you, the viewer, don't also pull up a little straighter upon hearing her impassioned advice.
After all, Allen has made a career of being a formidable presence in front of — and behind — the camera over the course of her more than 40 years on the small screen, and that voice is one that commands attention. Whether it's as a fierce force in Fame or as a Different World truth-teller, the Emmy-winning actress, producer, director and choreographer has a certain gravitas that commands your attention.
To mark Friday's release of Dance Dreams — a Shondaland-produced special that documents the lead-up to Allen's annual Christmas spectacle, featuring students at her academy as well as professional dancers and some other famous faces — we asked her to look back at some of her TV roles. From Good Times to Grey's Anatomy, she waxed nostalgic about the gigs that built her career.
Scroll down to see what Allen had to say, then hit the comments with your favorite memories of her performances!
8. GOOD TIMES
Playing Diana Buchanan, fianceé to Jimmy Walker's J.J., "was my very first acting role in television in a major nighttime show. I had done Captain Kangaroo before that, but that was the first real, prime time show that I did," Allen recalls. "It was a big deal all the way around. I was there visiting Ralph Carter, who had played my young brother Travis in Raisin, a musical version of Raisin in the Sun, and the casting woman saw me waiting. She said, "Oh, who are you?," and I told her I was Debbie Allen. She said, "Can you act?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." Allen read for the part, got it, "and then it all happened," she adds. Shooting the two-part episode "was fun, and Jimmy felt comfortable with me."
7. THE LOVE BOAT
Fun fact: When the ABC series filmed an episode, "they would go on a real cruise," Allen says. So when she played Isaac's love interest, Reesa, in two appearances, she got to see the world. "We just had such a ball to be in Europe, over there in Italy and Egypt and North Africa," she remembers. "The power of the show was incredible. Everywhere we went, people were excited to see the captain." And on at least one trip, "I took my mother with me," Allen says.
6. FAME
Allen appeared in both Fame's 1980 feature film and its subsequent TV adaptation, though her role in the movie came out a bit differently than originally planned. "My character was really a senior student, and I was written to be the nemesis for Coco. I was supposed to be the senior student that thought she was Miss It," Allen recalls, laughing. "But the movie was long, and they just never got to shoot it because [director] Allan Parker, the way he was such a creative genius, he was just getting so many things... So I ended up there in the audition [scene] as the teacher's assistant... and when they decided to do the series, they came and asked would I play the dance teacher?" Allen agreed — provided that she could be involved in the show's choreography — and "that was history after that." In a move that would become a hallmark of her career, Allen also served as one of the show's producers and directed several episodes.
5. A DIFFERENT WORLD
Allen was a producer and a director on the college-set Cosby Show spinoff, which she joined in Season 2. "I had been brought in to take the show and make it culturally relevant, and that was something I knew about," she says. "I went to Howard University, so I knew what a historically Black college ought to look like, smell like, feel like, taste like and act like." Eventually, the show's Powers That Be "wanted me to play the dean, and I said, 'You know what? There's somebody better than me, and I brought in Jenifer Lewis, and Jenifer Lewis was amazing as the dean," she says. But when Whitley needed a therapist, Allen relax!-relate!-release!'d her way into one of the show's best-known scenes. "Jasmine Guy actually had been one of my dancers on Fame. So I played her psychiatrist, and it was just the most fun part. And everybody loved [Dr. Langhorne] so much that I came back a couple of times."
4. IN THE HOUSE
Allen had become so accustomed to the director's chair by the time the LL Cool J's NBC sitcom came around, "people were worried that I would not be able to just be an actress, that I would want to direct everything," she says, chuckling. "But honey, I was happy just to go to make-up, to hair. It was fine with me!" She had helmed the future NCIS: Los Angeles star's early film, Out-of-Sync, and "LL was so comfortable because I was there," she notes, adding that from the start of his TV career, "he was funny, and he's got a lot of creativity in him. We had a good time."
3. S.W.A.T.
Allen recurs as Charice Harrelson, mom to Shemar Moore's Hondo, on CBS' cop drama. "Shemar is quite a gentleman, and a really loving human being who really loves his mom for real," she notes.,"I represented something that didn't even quite exist on the show until I got there, and it allowed them to show a little more of [Hondo's] vulnerable side. His more human side, if you will."
2. GREY'S ANATOMY
Allen remembers that when she was directing Grey's Anatomy, "We were having such a good time. There was a great energy on set, and then Shonda Rhimes said, 'I'm going to put you in the show.' I'm like, "OK, Shonda,' and that was nice, but I didn't know it was going to really happen. Then it happened, and I become this urologist and Jesse's mom." She laughs. "I did the first penis transplant, honey! Calm down." All joking aside, getting the ABC medical drama's jargon down is "a lot of work. It's a lot of practice," she says. "Whenever I'm acting as Catherine Fox, my stand-in doesn't get to work much. Because if I'm doing a surgery, I'm in there practicing while they are doing the lighting, because it's choreography. You have to hold the instruments right." One thing that proved a huge challenge? "It took me a week to be able to say 'anastomosing.' I can say it easily now," she says, "but I had to get it in my brain."
1. DANCE DREAMS: HOT CHOCOLATE NUTCRACKER
The Los Angeles-based Debbie Allen Dance Academy is at the heart of Allen's new Netflix special, which chronicles the lead-up to a performance of her modern retelling of the Christmas classic ballet. The Shondaland-produced documentary" focuses on these young performers, and we work hard to whip them into shape," Allen previews. And in Hot Chocolate Nutcracker itself — which is a melding of jazz, modern, hip-hop and ballet — the "real rat pack" (including a comedic character played by Allen) are front and center. "It's all about the rats taking over the story," she says, laughing.