Allred took up clogging at 10 and became almost unbeatable. Rivals videotaped his performances to try to find a way to beat him. A natural ham, he loved an audience and the stage. After performing his own routine during one competition, he reappeared again on stage a second time in place of a friend who had dropped out of the competition. One portion of the competition — called a cappella — consists of the judges turning their backs to the clogger so they can focus on the sound of the tapping. With the judges' backs turned to him, Allred put tap shoes on his hands, knelt on the stage and performed a routine with his hands. The crowd ate it up, laughing and roaring its approval. He was awarded first place — for both of his routines — but was later disqualified after rivals complained.

Once, he was scheduled to perform a synchronized routine with his sister, Aleece, but at the last moment they got into an argument and she refused to perform with him. Allred went on stage without her, using a Cabbage Patch doll he found in the audience as his partner. He held the doll's hand as he performed, then tossed the doll in the air and caught it, passed it between his legs, etc. The crowd and judges laughed, but he was disqualified again — "One of the many DQs I got for doing stuff to lighten things up," he says.

After watching Allred on stage, a friend of the family suggested he attend an open casting call for a Disney movie she had seen advertised in a newspaper. The casting director, Sherri Rhodes, decided Allred was too young for a role opposite Reese Witherspoon, but she gave the kid rave reviews.

"He's just got it," she told Diane Allred.

After telling her associates in Los Angeles about Allred, they asked for a taped audition for "Man Without a Face" with Mel Gibson, even though the parts were already taken. After watching the tape, Rhodes and her associates wanted him to come to California.

Diane Allred was skeptical. "I thought they were just after our money," she says. "You hear about these scams."

"Just give it one month," Rhodes told her. The first day the Allreds arrived in California, they were invited to dinner with various representatives. The next day, Rhodes called to tell them they had both an agent and an audition.

"We didn't know it at the time," says Diane Allred, "but it's not supposed to be that easy. We know kids who come every summer and never get an agent, let alone an audition."

Two weeks later Allred got an American Express commercial that never aired. A week later he won the lead role in "Quest of the Delta Knights," which required him to do a British accent — "I had never done one, but I had watched hundreds of hours of National Geographic," he says. The writers added a scene to utilize his dancing.

He was such a novice that when he appeared on the set for the first time he didn't understand the terminology. "Find your lights," they would tell him, or "Hit your mark, Corbin," and, he'd say, "What do you mean?"