Debbie Allen Elle Magazine 2017

Debbie Allen on Grey's Anatomy, Her Trailblazing Career, and the Increasing Diversity in TV By Emily Zemler

The legendary actress and director will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Gracie Awards.

 

Getty Gabriel Olsen

 

On June 6, the multitalented Debbie Allen will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 42nd annual Gracie Awards Gala, hosted by The Real's Jeannie Mai. But if you're thinking that someone who has appeared on everything from Fame to The Love Boat to Grey's Anatomy (which Allen also directs) would be blasé about this kind of recognition, you'd be wrong.

 

"This is really exciting for me," Allen tells ELLE.com. "I don't get much time to look back and celebrate myself because there's always something to do or a fire to put out or a project to start. There's always so much to do. So it's a nice moment for me."

 

Allen, 67, got her start on Broadway as a dancer, singer, and actress, and has since become instrumental in television shows both as an actor and behind the scenes as a director and producer. She became the first African American woman to receive a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series—Musical or Comedy in 1983 for her work on Fame, and today Allen is credited with mentoring dozens of young directors and creatives.

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"I don't think about that," Allen admits when asked about her contributions. "I'm too busy working to pat myself on the back. I don't think about that ever. I know I've touched a lot of people and I've inspired them. There have been so many wonderful young people who I've touched or trained."

 

"I'm too busy working to pat myself on the back."

Allen has directed everything from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Family Ties and Jane the Virgin. So what ties it all together? She says it all comes back to dancing. "The cohesive thing is the spirit of the dance, because it's helped me twirl through all of it," Allen says. "When you come up as a dancer, you come up with a tremendous amount of discipline. You are used to pain. You are born on criticism. Your every accomplishment comes out of criticism. You're tough. So coming out of that world in my own manner of creative curiosity and passion has remained a very interesting thing for me."

 

 When Allen first stepped behind the camera in the early '80s to direct an episode of Fame, she knew that she was breaking new ground. Nobody else on the show's crew looked like her, and she could do thing no one else could: "I had been directing quite a few of the dance numbers for directors who couldn't understand how to shoot [them]." Despite her determination, her uniqueness was starkly obvious: "There were no other women. There were no women anywhere. That's what I came up in. I was often the only woman in the room and the only Black person in the room. That was often the case. But things have changed now."

 

 

 

Allen says she first started noticing changes when she went to work on A Different World in 1988. There were more women on set and she even started a makeshift day care center because so many of the crew members were mothers. In the years since, Allen has seen a slow, organic shift toward more diversity in television—particularly when she joined Shondaland.

 

"It'd be hard to say there's a failure in diversity right now on TV," Allen says. "Shonda, the real khaleesi of the entertainment industry, is a Black woman. I see all the young women that are coming up as directors and I see so much diversity in the casting. I see that there has been major, major movement in a very natural way."

 

Having played Dr. Catherine Avery on Grey's Anatomy since 2011, Allen is pretty much a Shondaland fixture. "Grey's Anatomy has turned into a whole other movement in my career," she says. "You never know when you say yes to something where it's going to lead, or if you say no to something where it didn't go," she says. "Working in Shondaland has been great. The opportunity to become executive producer and director [on Grey's Anatomy] was great."

As she celebrates the growing diversity in the entertainment industry, Allen emphasizes the importance of earning each opportunity.

It can't be a lay-up. need to hire people whose work speaks to me and who work for the opportunity. The way to push it is for people to go and do the work and put in the time and gain the skill. It's not a given because you do an independent film on your iPhone and it gets some attention that you can direct. That doesn't mean you can come and tell Ellen Pompeo what to do.

As for Allen, she's certainly earned that right. There are only a few more episodes left in this season of Grey's Anatomy, and she says the finale—which she, of course, directed—will be a stunning cliffhanger: "There are some seeds that are planted that may leave you a little stunned and thinking: What's going to happen when we come back?" Any clues? "All I can tell you is it's hot. Don't miss it!"