Karen Jane Allen (born October 5, 1951) is an American film, television and stage actress. She made her film debut in the comedy film Animal House (1978), which was soon followed by a small role in Woody Allen's romantic comedy-drama Manhattan (1979) and a co-lead role in Philip Kaufman's coming-of-age film The Wanderers (1979), before co-starring opposite Al Pacino in William Friedkin's crime thriller Cruising (1980).
Allen's critical and commercial breakthrough came when she portrayed Marion Ravenwood opposite Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress. She later co-starred in Shoot the Moon (1982), Starman (1984), for which she was again nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress, and Scrooged (1988).
Allen has also received recognition for her work in The Glass Menagerie (1987), Year by the Sea (2016), and Colewell (2019). She reprised her role as Marion Ravenwood in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). Her stage work has included performances on Broadway, and she has directed both stage and film productions.
Early life Allen was born on October 5, 1951, in Carrollton, Illinois, to Ruth Patricia (née Howell) (1927–2020), a university professor, and Carroll Thompson Allen (1925–2015), an FBI agent. She is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh descent. 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.Herman, Arthur. "Karen Allen Balances Tame, Sexy Roles". United Press International. May 22, 1987. Although Allen says her father was very much involved in the family, she felt that she and her two sisters grew up in a very female-dominated household.Labrecque, Jeff. "Karen Allen in 'Indiana Jones': The Girl Who Almost Got Away" . Entertainment Weekly. September 18, 2012. Retrieved October 22, 2012.
After she graduated from DuVal High School, in Lanham, Maryland, in 1969, she moved to New York City to study art and design at Fashion Institute of Technology for two years. Allen later ran a boutique on the University of Maryland campus and spent time traveling through South and Central Asia. She attended George Washington University and began to study and perform with the experimental company, the Washington Theatre Laboratory, in Washington, D.C. In 1974, Allen joined Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts.Eaker, Sherry. The Back Stage Handbook for Performing Artists. New York: Back Stage Books, 1995, p. 78. Three years later, she moved back to New York City and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.
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. She had a small role as a television actor in Woody Allen's film Manhattan (1979), before being cast as the love interest of Al Pacino in William Friedkin's controversial film Cruising (1980).
Allen's 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 the 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 John Carpenter's science-fiction film Starman (1984). The film was a critical success, and later spawned the short-lived Starman television series in 1986. Allen's performance in the film earned her another nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Actress.
Allen debuted on Broadway in the 1982 production The Monday After The Miracle. 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. 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.
In 1988, Allen returned to the big screen as Bill Murray's long-lost love, Claire, in the Christmas comedy Scrooged. While the film initially earned a mixed response from critics upon its release, it was a major box office success. 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", 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. The film was a critical and commercial success.
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.
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. 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. It won the Best International Short at the Manchester Film Festival in March 2017. Allen played the lead role in 2017's Year by the Sea, a film based on The New York Times bestselling memoir by Joan Anderson.
Allen reprised her role as Marion Ravenwood one last time in 2023's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In 2024, she starred in Unsinkable: Titanic Untold as Nancy Smith, the wife of U.S. Senator William Alden Smith.
Personal life
Around 1985 Allen was dating songwriter Stephen Bishop whose composition "Separate Lives", sung by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin, from the 1985 movie White Nights, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Bishop wrote the song about his breakup with Karen Allen, who also appeared in Animal House. He said: "I write much better when I'm heartbroken and sad or melancholy."
In 1988, Allen married actor Kale Browne and had a son, Nicholas, in 1990. The couple divorced in 1998.Brownfield, Paul. "Hello, Karen? It's Steven..." Los Angeles Times. May 18, 2008. Following the birth of her son, Allen accepted smaller roles in TV and films to concentrate on raising Nicholas. Nicholas went on to become a personal chef and win a Chopped competition on Food Network, which aired on December 22, 2016.
In 2003, Allen started her own textile company, Karen Allen Fiber Arts, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The company has a store in Great Barrington that sells items Allen knits with a Japanese-made knitting machine as well as products made by other designers. For her work in the textile arts, she was awarded an honorary master's degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2009.
Allen also taught acting at Bard College at Simon's Rock, located in Great Barrington."Karen Allen. Expertise: Performing Arts." Media Toolkit. Bard College at Simon's Rock. 2012. Retrieved October 22, 2012.
, Allen lives in Massachusetts. She also works as a stage director.
Filmography
Film Year Title Role 1978National Lampoon's Animal HouseKaty 1979ManhattanTelevision Actor No. 2The WanderersNina 1980CruisingNancy Gates A Small Circle of FriendsJessica Bloom 1981Raiders of the Lost ArkMarion Ravenwood 1982Shoot the MoonSandy Split ImageRebecca/Amy 1984Until SeptemberMo Alexander StarmanJenny Hayden 1987TerminusGus The Glass MenagerieLaura Wingfield 1988BackfireMara McAndrew ScroogedClaire Phillips 1989Animal BehaviorAlex Bristow 1991Sweet TalkerJulie Maguire 1992The TurningGlory Lawson Malcolm XMiss Dunne 1993The SandlotMrs. Smalls King of the HillMiss Mathey Ghost in the MachineTerry Munroe 1996 RipperAn interactive movie point-and-click adventure game Dr. Claire Burton 1997'Til There Was YouBetty Dawkan 1998Falling SkyResse Nicholson 2000The BasketBessie Emery Wind RiverMarthaThe Perfect StormMelissa Brown 2001World TravelerDelores In the BedroomMarla Keyes 2003Briar PatchButcher Lee 2004Poster BoyEunice Kray When Will I Be LovedAlexandra Barrie 2008Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal SkullMarion Ravenwood 2010White Irish DrinkersMargaret 2015Bad HurtElaine Kendall 2016Year by the SeaJoan Anderson 2019ColewellNora Pancowski 2021Things Heard & Seen Mare Laughton 2022A Stage of TwilightCora 2023Indiana Jones and the Dial of DestinyMarion Ravenwood 2024UnsinkableNancy Smith The Easy Kind Kathy 2026Grandma Ruth
Television Year Title Role Notes 1978 Lovey: A Circle of Children, Part IIElizabeth Television film 1979 Knots Landing AnnieEpisode: "Pilot" 1981 East of Eden AbraEpisode: "Part Three" 1986 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Jackie Foster Episode: "The Creeper" 1990ChallengerChrista McAuliffe Television film Secret WeaponRuth 1993 RaptureGeorgianne Corcoran VoyageCatherine "Kit" Norvell 1994 The Road Home Alison Matson 6 episodes 1996 Hostile Advances: The Kerry Ellison Story Margaret Television film Law & Order Judith Sandler Episode: "Survivor" 1997 All the Winters That Have BeenHelen Raven Television film2001 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Paula VarneyEpisode: "Scourge" My Horrible Year!Belinda Faulkner Television film Shaka Zulu: The Citadel Katherine Farewell 2009A Dog YearPaula (voice) 2010November ChristmasClaire 2012The Tin StarEliza Flynn 2014 Blue Bloods Betty LoweEpisode: "Unfinished Business" 2020 50 States of Fright Sheriff Stallings 3 episodes 2022 The Last Movie Stars Frances Woodward (voice)
Awards and nominations Year Awards Category Nominated work Result Ref. 1981Saturn AwardsBest ActressRaiders of the Lost Ark 1983Theatre World AwardOutstanding New York City Stage Debut PerformanceMonday After the Miracle 1984Saturn AwardsBest ActressStarman 19883rd Independent Spirit AwardsBest Supporting Female The Glass Menagerie 1990Sant Jordi AwardsBest Foreign Actress 2009AARP Movies for Grownups AwardsBest Grownup Love Story (Over 50's) (shared with Harrison Ford)Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 2016Hamilton International Film FestivalBest ActressYear by the Sea 202035th Independent Spirit AwardsBest Female Lead ColewellChlotrudis AwardsBest Actress 2022Woods Hole Film Festival AwardsBest Performance in a Feature Film (Adult) (shared with William Sadler)A Stage of Twilight
Explanatory notes
References
External links
New York Times: A Night Out With | Karen Allen, Only for You, Dr. Jones Artist Direct Interview by Drew Tewksbury October 17, 2008