Actors - Karen Allen

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	Actors - Karen Allen

Karen Jane Allen (born October 5, 1951) is an American actress most famous for her roles in the films National Lampoon's Animal House
(1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981), and Starman
(1984).

Early life

Allen was born in Carrollton, in rural southern Illinois, to Carroll Thompson Allen (an FBI agent) and Patricia A. Howell. Allen spent her first 10 years traveling around the country with her parents and two sisters. At 17, after graduating from high school, she moved to New York to study art and design. She later attended the University of Maryland, College Park and spent time traveling through South and Central America. In 1974, Karen joined a theater group and three years later moved back to New York and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.

Film career

In 1978, Allen made her major film debut in National Lampoon's Animal House
and Hollywood took notice. Her next film was 1980's A Small Circle of Friends
, playing one of three radical college students during the 1960s. The United Artists-released film received only a limited theatrical release, ultimately grossing under $1 million. Her next big role came with Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981), where she played the feisty heroine Marion Ravenwood. Allen won a Saturn Award for Best Actress in a film for her role in the film.

Karen also debuted on Broadway in 1982 in "The Monday After the Miracle". After a few small films including the underrated Until September (1984), directed by Richard Marquand and other stage appearances, she made the successful science fiction film Starman
(1984). She often took breaks from movie roles to concentrate on stage acting.

In 1990, she also portrayed Christa McAuliffe in the controversial movie Challenger, based on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, of which Christa McAuliffe was a member of the crew.

Private life

Allen married actor Kale Browne (who, incidentally, portrayed Christa McAuliffe's husband, Steven, in Challenger) in 1988 and had Nicholas, her first child in 1990. Since the birth of Nicholas, Karen Allen has done smaller film roles and TV films to concentrate on raising Nicholas. She has also had an ongoing interest in knitting and in 2003 started her own textile company, Karen Allen-Fiber Arts in Western Massachusetts. She also teaches acting at Simon's Rock College of Bard.

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