Johnnie’s parents both drowned in a boating accident on Lake Weir when she was just 5 years old, at which point her grandmother took over the rearing process. It was her grandmother that instilled her Christian faith that she relies on during this time of recovery.

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“My grandmother was our foundation,” Johnnie Mae says. “Growing up in church, that’s where I learned a lot of self-discipline, respect… how to act.”

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In the mid-1960s, Mae was an elementary school student at the all-black Dr. N.H. Jones school, and when the law started to force racial integration of the schools, Mae eschewed the idea of attending all-black Howard High. She wanted to attend the previously all-white Osceola Middle School.

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“I wanted to be one of those people who make a difference,” Johnnie Mae says. “I was one of the first to integrate Osceola. They didn’t pick me as a cheerleader – I was too dark. The one black girl that made the team was a light-skinned girl with long hair named Tara Johnson, and she’s still my BFF today.”

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Undaunted,  Johnnie Mae attended cheer camp the next summer and won “Miss Congeniality,” which helped her earn a spot on the Forest High cheer squad her freshman year.

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Her next mission would come as a student at the University of Florida, where the Gator Growl homecoming production was world famous, but also devoid of black organizers and performers in the mid-1970s. Johnnie Mae thrust herself at the front of a push to change all that by leading a group of students that went before the school president.

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That mission accomplished, she then set out as a journalism major to test the new Title IX legislation involving equal treatment of male and female athletes. Johnnie Mae tried out for the football team, then coached by Doug Dickey, and documented the whole story which made news across the country.

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“I had my own talk show called ‘Come Together’ – I interviewed Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles, and a lot of others. I made a deal with coach Dickey that I would go down to the Miami game and start out with a tape recorder, recording people on the sideline – I was going to be the first female sideline reporter!”

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The morning of the trip to Miami, though, Johnnie Mae received word that her husband, Paul, had accidentally shot and killed himself. There would be no sideline reporting and a devastated Johnnie Mae would return to Ocala, giving up on her budding broadcasting career.

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Convinced by her grandmother to eventually return to college, Johnnie Mae went back and earned her degree, but opted for a career in theatre which may have been her first love all along.  On the advice of one of her high school teachers, Johnnie Mae went to New York.

 

Johnnie Mae in The Big Apple

 

After gigs as a model and performing in commercial spots for years, Johnnie Mae reeled in her big break in the early 1990s: a guest spot on Law & Order. She filmed a scene with actor Paul Sorvino, who taught her a big lesson in TV and movie acting.

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“My scene was first and when it was time to turn the camera to him, I didn’t think he wanted me to do the lines,” Johnnie Mae said. “He said, ‘Young lady, just what I give you, you’ve got to give me back so my scene will be good.’

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“My heart dropped to the floor, but I learned a valuable lesson: You’ve got to do it the same way when you’re taping each take and you get better and better as you do it.”

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As a character actor, Johnnie Mae performed scores of roles on television and movies, then one day director Martin Scorcese came calling. He needed a life-hardened maid for his show Boardwalk Empire and Johnnie Mae fit the bill perfectly. Her portrayal of Louanne Pratt in the show turned many heads her way and kept her on Scorcese’s radar.

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When Scorcese was casting for “The Wolf of Wall Street” he went right to Johnnie Mae to play the role of Jordan Belfort’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) housekeeper.

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“They didn’t have any lines for me, (Scorcese) just said, ‘Johnnie Mae, you just say whatever you want to say. So, what I said, I just made all that stuff up; but, I got a production check and an actor’s check – they paid me for them lines!”

 

Today and tomorrow

 

Most recently, Johnnie Mae appeared in the Amazon Prime Video movie “The Better Sister” with Elizabeth Banks, in which she played a bailiff. Up next is the Disney series Daredevil: Born Again in which she plays a waitress. All has taken place over chemo treatments, the last of which took place right after Christmas.

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“The doctor told me if I didn’t take the chemo, I’d be dead by the end of the first year. I’m on a healing plan – I’m on a couple of prayer lines every week. I believe the prayers of the righteous prevaileth much!”

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It’s not slowing her down; conversely, it is inspiring her to bring an old project out of moth balls: “Won Woman” – a one-person play she wrote back in 2006 and may be ready soon to take to the stage. Part comedy and part drama, “Won Woman” takes the audience through her life experiences in Ocala and to the present day in New York. 

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“When I started integration and I got in the talent show, I won something,” Johnnie Mae says. “When I went to the cheerleading camp and got Miss Congeniality – I won. When I got to high school, I made the cheerleading squad – I won! When I changed Gator Growl, I won!”

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She says it needs a little polishing and when it’s ready she’ll perform at churches or anywhere else. Mainly, she says she needs to work on the jokes.

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“I’m gonna run my mouth all the way to where someone’s going to do a movie out of this.”

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It’s been a life of triumphs against some stiff odds, and no matter what happens with the cancer, Johnnie Mae Allen will have won… on stage, and in life.