Karen Allen: Four Most Important Facts

When Karen Allen started her acting journey, it was all like a dream, an unsure road. With each credit, she steps a bolder step forward until she has now established a stronger footing in the acting industry and even own it. How much of the star do you know?

Here, we present the four most important facts about her career and personal life.

1. Karen Allen is the daughter of a University Professor and an FBI agent

Karen Allen is the daughter of Carrol Thompson Allen, an FBI agent and Ruth Patricia a university professor. She was raised in a house that made up her mother, two of her sisters as the family moved around the States due to her father’s job. “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”.

But the actress sometimes in an interview admitted that her father still squeezed out time from his tight office schedules to be with the family.

At the age of 17, she graduated from DuVal High School, in Lanham, Maryland before moving to New York City to study art and design at the Fashion Institute of Technology for two years. In Maryland, she discovered an entrepreneurship side of her life as she set up her very own boutique on the campus and lived the life of a young CEO traveling around the world. She is currently 67 years old (born October 5, 1951).

2. She never considered acting while growing up

Being a movie star wasn’t part of the things Karen wanted for herself. In fact, if a fortuneteller had told her that she would appear in countless films in a lead role, she would have doubted because she never looked like it. She did not come from a family of actors, but all that changed when she watched a Jerzy Grotowski theater production in New York which triggered the show business button in her

She started learning acting on her own and soon she joined the Washington Theatre Laboratory in Washington D.C while studying at George Washington University. Karen later moved to Massachusetts and joined Shakespeare & Company and had some minor roles in theater plays. To be sure she wasn’t leaving any stone unturned, she enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute to study acting. Her educational journey for the art shows why she is really the daughter of a professor.

Erika Christensen

She made her acting debut as Katy in the 1978 comedy film “National Lampoon’s Animal House”. A year after, she appeared in “The Wanderers” as Nina. Her breakout role came quite early in her acting journey as she starred in the Steven Spielberg directed adventure film “Raiders of the Lost Ark” as Marion Ravenwood. She later reprised the role of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” in 2008.

She has played blind characters in the plays “The Monday After the Miracle” and “The Miracle Worker”. She was so good in both roles perhaps because she suffered temporary blindness from atopic keratoconjunctivitis in 1978.

Outside of her acting gigs, Karen is a good singer, songwriter, and musician. She once played in a band with Kathleen Turner; and recorded a duet with Jeff Bridges for the Starman soundtrack album.

In 2009, she received an honorary doctor of fine arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology she has also taught acting at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. Putting her first degree into practice, she designs and knits sweaters, hats, and scarves for her own clothing label called Karen Allen Fiber Arts. She practices yoga regularly and even holds yoga classes for people who are willing to learn.

3. Karen Allen was married to actor Kale Browne

Karen Allen married Kale Browne, the man she played wifely roles in two “Challenger” and “Til There Was You”. They married in 1988 and welcomed a son together Nicholas. When they were still together, Karen accepted fewer roles in films so she could be in the life of their son. Unfortunately, they divorced in 1998 and she has not remarried since then.

See also Stephen Lang

Although there is another name that looms large whenever her marital life is mentioned and the name is Stephen Bishop. Stephen Bishop is a singer and equally her first husband. They married in the early ’80s and divorced so early after which she met Kale Browne.

4. She has an impressive net worth

Karen Allen has a net worth of 10 million dollars. Karen cannot look us straight in the eyes and say she made these figures by appearing in films alone. She runs a textile company. Karen is a CEO.

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