The smiling young woman on our card stood in front of a TV Land Awards backdrop with her hair piled high, and the clue said her dad was praising the fifth chapter of a film series he’s in. That was Katherine Allen, the oldest daughter of Tim Allen, who has voiced Buzz Lightyear since 1995 and talked up Toy Story 5 long before it opened in theaters in June 2026. If you spent the ’90s watching Tim Taylor grunt his way through Home Improvement, you may be surprised to learn that the toddler at home during the show’s first season is now a married woman in her mid-30s.
Tim Allen, born June 13, 1953, is 73 today and still working, with the third season of his ABC sitcom Shifting Gears set to premiere January 6, 2027. He has two daughters from two marriages, born nearly 20 years apart, and their lives could hardly be more different. One has stayed carefully out of view. The other auditioned her way into a Santa suit of her own.
Katherine Allen Grew Up During the ‘Tool Time’ Years
Katherine was born in December 1989 to Allen and his first wife, Laura Deibel, whom he married in 1984. She was not quite 2 when Home Improvement premiered on ABC in September 1991, so she grew up while her father became one of the most famous faces on television. By the time The Santa Clause came out in 1994 and Toy Story followed a year later, her dad was a sitcom star, a movie star and a talking toy on store shelves all at once.
She has taken that last part in stride. “I am so used to it, he has been a toy since I was 6,” she told People at the 2019 premiere of Toy Story 4. Her parents legally separated in 1999, the year Home Improvement ended, and their divorce was finalized in 2003. Katherine stayed close to her father through all of it. According to People, she stood beside him when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in November 2004, and she was at the 2006 premiere of The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.
That same October, Allen married actress Jane Hajduk in a small ceremony in Grand Lake, Colorado, with Katherine in attendance. Within a few years, the family would grow by one.
Jane Hajduk Gave Tim Allen a Second Daughter
Elizabeth Allen-Dick was born in March 2009, when Katherine was 19. The hyphenated name nods to her father’s real surname, since he was born Timothy Alan Dick in Denver. Allen has described the day as a family affair. “Her sister was there and a couple of her friends,” he told People, recalling that he “was the first one that got to look at” the new baby.
For most of her childhood, Elizabeth stayed out of the spotlight too. She made a rare appearance at the Toy Story 4 premiere in June 2019, posing with Buzz Lightyear alongside her sister, her mother and her father. Asked what she thought of the movie, the 10-year-old kept it short. “It’s cool, I like it,” she told People. A few years later, she would be the one on screen.
How Elizabeth Allen-Dick Became Santa’s Daughter
When Disney+ brought back Scott Calvin for The Santa Clauses in 2022, Allen was an executive producer, and he had a modest plan for his youngest. He wanted her to play a background elf so she could see herself in a movie. Then she read for the casting team. “She drilled a very difficult mood joke and she kept on it all the way through,” Allen told Entertainment Tonight in November 2022, adding that “she earned it.” She was cast as Sandra Calvin, Scott and Carol’s youngest child, opposite Elizabeth Mitchell as Mrs. Claus.
Allen told Jimmy Fallon that watching her win the part was “the most amazing occurrence,” and the advice he gave her before filming, as he told People in 2022, was about humility. “Being an actor is a wonderful craft but we are just a part of a teamwork experience,” he said. Elizabeth appreciated the balance he struck on set. “He was there when I needed help, but he also let me kind of figure it out too, which I really liked,” she told ET. We covered her first season with him when she opened up about working with her dad, and she returned as Sandra for the show’s second season in November 2023.
Allen even floated a Home Improvement idea built around a girl her age. “Well, if one of the boys got married and they had a kid,” he told Parade in 2023, “cause it could be a granddaughter.” Elizabeth is 17 now, and in June 2026 she walked the Toy Story 5 red carpet in Los Angeles with her parents, according to Fox News. Her older sister, meanwhile, had already given their father one of the most emotional days of his life.
What Is Katherine Allen Doing Today?
Katherine, who is 36, has never sought a public career. People has reported that she has no public-facing job, and she keeps her personal details private. So when her father let slip on Live with Kelly and Mark in January 2025 that she had gotten married, it was the first most fans had heard of it. Allen did not share the date or the groom’s name, but he did tell the story of the father-daughter dance.
“She asked me though, she’s a really serious girl. And she said, ‘I want you to do the father-daughter dance,'” he recalled, as reported by People. She also told him, “I don’t trust you not to screw it up,” so the man who made a career out of Tool Time mishaps signed up for lessons. “It was six, one-hour sessions with this instructor and back and forth,” he said. “It was worth it; mostly that because I did it and my daughter was amazed that I went and did it.”
The dance went fine. The speech was another matter. “I was crying before it and then when I did that speech, right in the middle of it, I broke down,” Allen admitted. Thirty-some years after a little girl watched her dad become Tim the Tool Man, he stood up at her wedding and could barely get the words out.
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