Jacqueline “Jay” Presson Allen (March 3, 1922 – May 1, 2006) was an American screenwriter, playwright, and novelist. Known for her withering wit and sometimes off-color wisecracks, she was one of the few women making a living as a screenwriter at a time when women were a rarity in the profession. She was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Bob Fosse’s Cabaret (1972) and Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City (1981), among several other accolades.

Allen was born Jacqueline Presson in San Angelo, Texas, on March 3, 1922, the only child of buyer Willie Mae (née Miller) and department store merchant Albert Jack Presson. She was never particularly fond of her given name, and decided to use her first initial when writing. She would spend all day at the movie house every weekend, from 1 p.m. until somebody dragged her out at 7 p.m. From that time on, movies became very important to her and she knew she would not be staying in her hometown. She attended Miss Hockaday's School for Young Ladies in Dallas for a couple of years, but later said she left the school "having had no education to speak of".

Allen skipped college and left home at the age of 18 to become an actress. She said her career in New York City lasted "for about 25 minutes" when she realized that she only liked rehearsals and the first week of performance, and would rather be "out there" where the decisions were being made. In the early 1940s, she married "the first grown man who asked me," Robert M. Davis, a promising young singer, and they lived in Claremont, California, during World War II. She continued acting while in California; she has a small credited role (under the name Jay Presson) in the 1945 film An Angel Comes to Brooklyn and can be glimpsed briefly as "Miss Zelda" in the 1946 film Gay Blades.

Allen became a writer by default, having always read constantly. Being able to write pretty well, she decided to "write her way out" of the marriage and set out to become financially independent of her husband. She always claimed her first husband's big fault was marrying someone too young. Her debut novel, Spring Riot, was published in 1948 and got mixed reviews. Her next effort was a play, which she sent to producer Bob Whitehead. Because he had produced Member of the Wedding, she thought he would like it since her play was also about a child, but the play came back from Whitehead's office rejected. Allen waited for a couple of months and sent it back, rightly figuring that some reader had rejected it instead of Whitehead himself. This time Whitehead read the play and instantly optioned it, but due to casting problems her play was never produced on stage. The reader who had initially rejected her play was Lewis M. Allen, whom she would later marry.

Allen returned to New York and performed on radio and in cabaret, both of which she loathed, and would go through the whole performance wishing to be fired. In the meantime she started writing again, little by little, and sold some of her work to live television programs like The Philco Television Playhouse. When she married Lewis M. Allen in 1955, they moved to the countryside, where Lewis wrote and Allen in her words "didn't want to do anything." She had a baby, and spent two and a half "absolutely wonderful years in the country."

Eventually the couple came back to the city to work. By then, Bob Whitehead had become a good friend and encouraged Allen to write another play. She drew on her married life and wrote The First Wife, about a suburban working couple. It was made into the film Wives and Lovers in 1963, starring Janet Leigh and Van Johnson. When Allen read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark, she instantly saw play potential where no one else did. After undergoing hypnotherapy to alleviate a yearlong bout of writer's block, Allen produced a draft of the play in three days.

While The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was still an unproduced script, Alfred Hitchcock read it and offered Allen the script for Marnie (1964). Hitchcock brought Allen to California to work on the film at Universal Studios in the San Fernando Valley. Allen, who lived close by, would bicycle to work. This upset Hitchcock, who insisted that a limousine be sent for her every day, whether she wanted it or not.

In Allen's opinion, she could not learn fast enough to make a first-rate movie, although she thought Marnie did have some good scenes in it. Hitchcock would have made her a director but she told him no. Said Allen: "It seems perfectly clear to me that any project takes a minimum of a year to direct. I like to get things on and over with. ... Did you ever hear the phrase, 'the lady proposes, the studio disposes'? I didn't make it up. I would never propose myself as a director." Under Hitchcock's mentoring, Allen developed the screenwriting talent she would use the rest of her career. Allen wrote that she never felt discriminated against. While being one of the rare female screenwriters in Hollywood in the 1960s, she said "almost all of the men I worked with were supportive. If I was getting a bum rap somewhere, I didn't know it."