American actress Laura Allen was born on March 21, 1974 in Portland, Oregon. A sociology graduate from the Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, she worked as a domestic violence counselor for the NYPD before pursuing an acting career. She first earned recognition when she joined the cast of the long-running daytime soap All My Children, where she played the role of Laura Kirk. She was married to Leo du Pres (Josh Duhamel), although only because her adoptive mother (Julia Barr) begged him to marry her, if only for her to have something to motivate her to fight for her life. Leo eventually left her after she got a heart transplant.
She appeared in the show from 2000 to 2002. She then appeared in several films, including Mona Lisa Smile, How You Look to Me, and A Tale of Two. Most of her acting credits, though, stemmed from television. She played guest roles on Cold Case, North Shore, House and Criminal Minds. In 2004, she got her first regular prime time television role, when she joined the cast of The 4400. Here, she played the role of Lily Tyler, one of the abducted who returns with the power of empathy and, possibly, the ability to extracts days from other people’s lives to herself, and vice versa.
When The 4400 ended its run in 2007, Allen joined the cast of the serial drama Dirt. The series somehow revolves around her character—she plays Julia Mallory, a popular and much-loved celebrity, whose career is slowly destroyed after she becomes addicted to painkillers, and eventually affects her relationship with Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart). She later plots revenge against magazine editor Lucy Spiller (Courteney Cox), who exposed her pursuits. She has since appeared in other films, including From Within and The Collective, and also played a guest role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.