Karen Allen

Karen Allen
Allen at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	Karen Jane Allen October 5, 1951 (1951-10-05) Carrollton, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Kale Browne (m. 1988–1998) «start: (1988)–end+1: (1999)»"Marriage: Kale Browne to Karen Allen" Location: (linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Allen) (one son)

Karen Jane Allen (born October 5, 1951) is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Allen has also had roles in films including National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), The Wanderers (1979), Cruising (1980), Starman (1984), Scrooged (1988), The Sandlot (1993), and Poster Boy (2004).

Early life

Allen was born in Carrollton, rural western Illinois, the daughter of Patricia Allen (née Howell), a teacher, and Carroll Thompson Allen, an FBI agent. She is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. Allen spent her first 10 years traveling around the country with her parents and two sisters.^{[citation needed]} After she graduated from DuVal Senior High School, in Lanham, Maryland, at 17, she moved to New York City to study art and design at Fashion Institute of Technology.^{[citation needed]} She later attended the University of Maryland, College Park, and spent time traveling through South and Central America.^{[citation needed]} In 1974, Allen joined Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts and, three years later, moved back to New York City and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.^{[citation needed]}

Career

In 1978, Allen made her major film debut 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.

Allen at the 2006 Dallas Comic Con

Her career-changing role came with the blockbuster hit Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), directed by Steven Spielberg, in which she played the feisty heroine Marion Ravenwood, love interest of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Allen won a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her performance. 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.^{[citation needed]} In 1983, she played the lead in the off-Broadway play Extremities, a physically demanding role about a would-be rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker.^{[citation needed]} She often took breaks from movie roles to concentrate on stage acting, although 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.^{[citation needed]}

In 1988, Karen 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 controversial^{[citation needed]} 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 television's Law & Order (1996) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2001). She had also starred in the short-lived series The Road Home (1994) and portrayed Dr. Clare Burton in the video game Ripper (1996).

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.

Personal life

In 1988, Allen married actor Kale Browne and gave birth to a son Nicholas in 1990. The couple divorced in 1998.^{[citation needed]}

After she gave birth, she accepted smaller roles in TV and films in order to concentrate on raising Nicholas.^{[citation needed]} Given her affinity for knitting, in 2003, she started her own textile company, "Karen Allen Fiber Arts", in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, for which she was awarded an honorary master's degree from The Fashion Institute of Technology, in their 2009 Commencement Exercises.^{[citation needed]} She also teaches acting at Bard College at Simon's Rock, which is located in Great Barrington. She currently lives in Monterey, Massachusetts. She also teaches yoga.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

Movies
Year	Title	Role
1978	Animal House	Katy
1979	The Wanderers	Nina
1980	Cruising	Nancy
	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	Until September	Mo Alexander
	Starman	Jenny Hayden
1987	Terminus	Gus
	The Glass Menagerie	Laura Wingfield
1988	Backfire	Mara McAndrew
	Scrooged	Claire Phillips
1989	Animal Behavior	Alex Bristow
1990	Challenger	Christa McAuliffe
1991	Sweet Talker	Julie Maguire
1992	The Turning	Glory Lawson
	Malcolm X	Miss Dunne
1993	The Sandlot	Scott's Mom
	King of the Hill	Miss Mathey
	Ghost in the Machine	Terry Munroe
1997	'Til There Was You	Betty Dawkan
1998	Wind River	Martha (Wilson)
	Falling Sky	Resse Nicholson
1999	The Basket	Bessie Emery
2000	The Perfect Storm	Melissa Brown
2001	In the Bedroom	Marla Keyes
	World Traveler	Delores
2003	The Root
	Briar Patch	Butcher Lee
2004	Poster Boy	Eunice Kray
	When Will I Be Loved	Alexandra Barrie
2001	Hostile Advances The Kerry Ellison Story (film)	Margaret
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
2011	I Am Number Four	Sam's Mom (scenes deleted)

External links

• Official website
• Karen Allen at the Internet Movie Database
• Karen Allen at the Internet Broadway Database
• Karen Allen at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Karen Allen at AllRovi
• 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: An ACME Page
• Karen Allen on The Graham Norton Show, BBC Television, UK, November 2008