World's tallest woman dies in care home

The world's tallest woman has died at the age of 53, it has been revealed.

Sandy Allen, who stood 7ft 7in, passed away in an American nursing home in her home town of Shelbyville, Indiana.

The cause of death is not yet known.

Allen had been hospitalised in recent months as she suffered from a recurring blood infection, along with diabetes, breathing troubles and kidney failure, a family friend, Rita Rose, said.

Guinness World Records spokesman Damian Field confirmed Wednesday that Allen was still listed as the tallest woman.

Some websites cite a 7ft 9in woman from China.

Coincidentally, Allen lived in the same nursing home, Heritage House Convalescent Centre, as 115-year-old Edna Parker, whom Guinness has recognised as the world's oldest person since August 2007.

Allen said a tumour caused her pituitary gland to produce too much growth hormone.

She underwent an operation in 1977 to stop further growth.

But she was proud of her height, Rose said. "She embraced it," she said. "She used it as a tool to educate people."

Allen appeared on television shows and spoke to church and school groups to bring youngsters her message that it was all right to be different.

After Allen was listed by Guinness as the world's tallest woman, she won a role in Federico Fellini's 1976 film Casanova, appearing as Angelina the Giantess.

She was featured in the 1981 Canadian documentary Being Different.

She also appeared in a TV movie called Side Show in 1981.

She wrote to Guinness World Records in 1974, saying she would like to get to know someone her own height.

"It is needless to say my social life is practically nil and perhaps the publicity from your book may brighten my life," she wrote.

The recognition as the world's tallest woman helped Allen accept her height and become less shy, Rose said.

"It kind of brought her out of her shell," Rose said. "She got to the point where she could joke about it."

In the 1980s, she appeared for several years at the Guinness Museum of World Records in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

"I'll never forget the old Japanese man who couldn't speak English, so he decided to feel for himself if I was real," she recalled with a chuckle when she moved back to Indiana in 1987.

"At Guinness there were days when I felt like I was doing a freak show," she said. "When that feeling came too often, I knew I had to come back home."

Difficulty with mobility had forced Allen to curtail her public speaking in recent years, Rose said. She had suffered from diabetes and other ailments and used a wheelchair to get around.

A scholarship fund has been set up in Allen's name through the Blue River Community Foundation, Rose said, with proceeds going to Shelbyville High School.

"She loved talking to kids because they would ask more honest questions," Rose said. "Adults would kind of stand back and stare and not know how to approach her."