Karen Allen

Karen Jane Allen (born October 5, 1951) is an American film and stage actress. After making her film debut in Animal House (1978), she became best known for her portrayal of Marion Ravenwood opposite Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a role she later reprised for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).[1] She also co-starred in Starman (1984) and Scrooged (1988). Her stage work has included performances on Broadway, and she has directed both for stage and film.

Karen Allen
Karen Allen at the opening of A Year by the Sea, Coconut Creek, Florida in February 2017
Born	Karen Jane Allen October 5, 1951 Carrollton, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1977–present
Spouse(s)	Kale Browne ​ ​ (m. 1988; div. 1998)​
Children	1
Website	karenallen-actor-director.com

Early life

Allen was born in Carrollton, Illinois,[2] to Ruth Patricia (née Howell), a university professor, and Carroll Thompson Allen, an FBI agent.[3] She is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh descent.[4] Her father's job forced the family to move often. "I grew up moving almost every year and so I was always the new kid in school and always in a way was deprived of ever really having any lasting friendships", Allen said in 1987.[5] Although Allen says her father was very much involved in the family, she felt that her two sisters and she grew up in a very female-dominated household.[6] After she graduated from DuVal High School, in Lanham, Maryland, at 17, she moved to New York City to study art and design at Fashion Institute of Technology for two years.[7]

Allen later ran a boutique on the University of Maryland campus[8] and spent time traveling through South and Central Asia.[4] She attended George Washington University and began to study and perform with the experimental company, the Washington Theatre Laboratory, in Washington, DC.[7] In 1974, Allen joined Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts.[9] Three years later, she moved back to New York City and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.[4]

Career

Allen made her major film debut in 1978, in National Lampoon's Animal House. Her next two film appearances were in The Wanderers, in 1979, and A Small Circle of Friends in 1980, where she played one of three radical college students during the 1960s. She also appeared (as a guest star) in the 1979 pilot episode of the long-running CBS series Knots Landing and played Annie Fairgate, the daughter of Don Murray's character Sid Fairgate and Sid's first wife Susan Philby.

Allen at the 2006 Dallas Comic Con

Her career-changing role came with the blockbuster movie Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), directed by Steven Spielberg, in which she played Marion Ravenwood, the love interest of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Allen won a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her performance.[10] After a few minor films, including leading roles in the dramatic thriller Split Image (1982), directed by Ted Kotcheff and the Paris-set romantic drama Until September (1984), directed by Richard Marquand, as well as other stage appearances, she co-starred with Jeff Bridges in the science-fiction film Starman (1984).

Allen debuted on Broadway in the 1982 production The Monday After The Miracle.[11] In 1983, she played the lead in the off-Broadway play Extremities, a physically demanding role about a woman who turns the tables on a would-be rapist who attacks her.[11] She often took breaks from movie roles to concentrate on stage acting; Allen appeared as Laura in the Paul Newman-directed film version of the Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie, with John Malkovich and Joanne Woodward, in 1987.[12]

In 1988, Allen returned to the big screen as Bill Murray's long-lost love, Claire, in the Christmas comedy Scrooged. In 1990, she portrayed the doomed crew member Christa McAuliffe in the television movie Challenger, based on the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Subsequently, she appeared in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992), in a small supporting role in The Perfect Storm (2000) and In the Bedroom (2001). She made guest appearances on Law & Order (1996) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2001). She also starred in the short-lived series The Road Home (1994) and portrayed Dr. Clare Burton in the video game Ripper (1996). In 2014 she played the role of Betty Lowe in "Unfinished Business"[13] the 13th episode of the 4th season of the CBS police procedural drama Blue Bloods.

Allen reprised her best-known role as Marion Ravenwood for the 2008 sequel Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which she renews her relationship with Indiana Jones and reveals to him that they have a son named Henry Jones III, who named himself Mutt Williams, played by Shia LaBeouf.

Allen starred in the American premiere of Jon Fosse's A Summer Day at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City, which opened in October 2012.[14]

Allen has a long-standing relationship with the Berkshire Theater Group. It began in 1981, when she appeared in the play Two for the Seesaw at the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She has also appeared in summer production of the nearby Williamstown Theater Festival. In August 2015, Allen directed Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune for the Berkshire Theater Group.[15] In 2016, Allen made her movie directing debut with the short film, A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud., based on the short story by Carson McCullers.[16] It won the Best International Short at the Manchester Film Festival in March 2017.[17] Allen played the lead role in 2017's A Year by the Sea, a film based on The New York Times bestselling memoir by Joan Anderson.[18]

Personal life

In 1988, Allen married actor Kale Browne and had a son, Nicholas, in 1990. The couple divorced in 1998.[19]

Following the birth of her son, Allen accepted smaller roles in TV and films to concentrate on raising Nicholas.[14] Nicholas went on to become a personal chef and win a Chopped competition on the Food Network, aired December 22, 2016.[20][21][22]

She developed an affinity for knitting, and in 2003, started her own textile company, Karen Allen Fiber Arts, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The company sells items Allen knits with a Japanese-made knitting machine.[15] For her work in the textile arts, she was awarded an honorary master's degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2009.[23] Allen also teaches acting at Bard College at Simon's Rock, located in Great Barrington.[24] As of July 2015, she lives in Massachusetts.[15] She also works as a teacher and stage director and knits.[14]

Filmography

Movies
Year	Title	Role
1978	National Lampoon's Animal House	Katy
	Lovey: A Circle of Children, Part II	Elizabeth
1979	Manhattan	Television Actor #2
	The Wanderers	Nina
1980	Cruising	Nancy Gates
	A Small Circle of Friends	Jessica Bloom
1981	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Marion Ravenwood
1982	Shoot the Moon	Sandy
	Split Image	Rebecca/Amy
1984	Starman	Jenny Hayden
1985	Until September	Mo Alexander
1987	Terminus	Gus
	The Glass Menagerie	Laura Wingfield
1988	Backfire	Mara McAndrew
	Scrooged	Claire Phillips
1989	Animal Behavior	Alex Bristow
1990	Challenger	Christa McAuliffe
	Secret Weapon	Ruth
1991	Sweet Talker	Julie Maguire
1992	The Turning	Glory Lawson
	Malcolm X	Miss Dunne
1993	The Sandlot	Mrs. Smalls
	Rapture	Georgianne Corcoran
	King of the Hill	Miss Mathey
	Voyage	Catherine "Kit" Norvell
	Ghost in the Machine	Terry Munroe
1996	Hostile Advances: The Kerry Ellison Story	Margaret
	Ripper[note 1]	Dr. Claire Burton
1997	'Til There Was You	Betty Dawkan
	All the Winters That Have Been	Helen Raven
1998	Falling Sky	Resse Nicholson
1999	The Basket	Bessie Emery
2000	Wind River	Martha
	The Perfect Storm	Melissa Brown
2001	In the Bedroom	Marla Keyes
	My Horrible Year!	Belinda Faulkner
	World Traveler	Delores
	Shaka Zulu ; The Citadel / The Last Great Warrior	Katherine Farewell
2003	Briar Patch	Butcher Lee
2004	Poster Boy	Eunice Kray
	When Will I Be Loved	Alexandra Barrie
2008	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	Marion Ravenwood
2009	A Dog Year	Paula (voice)
2010	White Irish Drinkers	Margaret
2010	November Christmas	Claire
2012	The Tin Star	Eliza Flynn
2015	Bad Hurt	Elaine Kendall
2016	Year by the Sea	Joan Anderson
2019	Colewell	Nora Pancowski
2020	50 States of Fright	Mary Laughton
2021	Things Heard and Seen	Mare Laughton	Post-production
TBA	Unsinkable	Nancy Smith	Filming

References

1. "Karen Allen Picture, Profile, Gossip, and News". CelebrityWonder.com. Archived from the original on November 29, 2009. Retrieved August 2, 2010.
2. "City of Carrollton, Illinois". Archived from the original on December 9, 2020. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
4. Wloszczyna, Susan (September 15, 2010). "Allen and Riegert tend to the 'White Irish Drinkers'". USA Today. Archived from the original on October 3, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
5. Herman, Arthur. "Karen Allen Balances Tame, Sexy Roles". United Press International. May 22, 1987.
6. Labrecque, Jeff. "Karen Allen in 'Indiana Jones': The Girl Who Almost Got Away". Entertainment Weekly. September 18, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2012.
7. "About - Karen Allen". karenallen-actor-director.com. Karen Allen. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
8. "Karen Allen: The Girl Next Door". news.google.com. The Telegraph. July 22, 1981. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
9. Eaker, Sherry. The Back Stage Handbook for Performing Artists. New York: Back Stage Books, 1995, p. 78.
10. "List of Best Actress Saturn Award winners". Archived from the original on December 19, 2008.
11. Barton, Chris (August 21, 2012). "'Indiana Jones' Star Karen Allen Heads for the Stage". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California: Tronc. Retrieved November 6, 2018.
12. Hetrick, Adam; Jones, Kenneth (October 10, 2012). "Karen Allen and Samantha Soule Share 'A Summer Day' Off-Broadway Beginning Oct. 10". Playbill. New York City: Playbill, Inc.
13. "Unfinished Business". imdb.com. January 17, 2014.
14. Kozinn, Allan (October 22, 2012). "Karen Allen Returns in 'Summer Day' at Cherry Lane Theater". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2012.
15. Shaw, Dan (July 31, 2015). "Karen Allen at Home in the Berkshires". The New York Times. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
16. Shanahan, Mark (July 28, 2017). "'Raiders' actress Karen Allen brings directorial debut to Woods Hole Film Fest". The Boston Globe. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
17. Monsky, Ronni (May 31, 2017). "The Berkshire International Film Festival opens this week: 80 films from 23 countries in 4 days". The Berkshire Edge. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
18. Burr, Ty (September 21, 2017). "Karen Allen is the one true thing in 'Year by the Sea'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
19. Brownfield, Paul. "Hello, Karen? It's Steven..." Los Angeles Times. May 18, 2008.
20. "Nicholas Browne, Chef". facebook.com. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
21. ""Chopped" Winner Seeks Funding for Massachusetts Cidery". Cider Culture. January 3, 2017. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
22. "Can you afford a personal celebrity chef? You might be surprised". TownVibe. April 30, 2019. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
23. "Annie Leibovitz to Give Keynote Address". Fashion Institute of Technology. May 14, 2009. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
24. "Karen Allen. Expertise: Performing Arts." Archived June 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Media Toolkit. Bard College at Simon's Rock. 2012. Accessed October 22, 2012.

Notes

1. An interactive movie point-and-click adventure game

External links

• Official website
• Karen Allen at IMDb
• Karen Allen at the Internet Broadway Database
• Karen Allen at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Karen Allen at AllMovie
• New York Times: A Night Out With | Karen Allen, Only for You, Dr. Jones
• Artist Direct Interview by Drew Tewksbury October 17, 2008
• Karen Allen on The Graham Norton Show, BBC Television, UK, November 2008 on YouTube