Karen Allen was born in Carrolton, Illinois on October 5th 1951. Karen Allen's mother was a teacher and her father a FBI agent so Karen Allen found herself, and her two sisters, moving around a lot during her youth. She was always 'the new girl in school'. Acting did not really cross Karen Allen's mind until her early twenties when she saw a Jerry Grotowski theatre production that impressed her so much she instantly decided to give it a shot. She trained as a classical actress and enrolled at the Actors Studio and with Lee Strasberg in New York. During this period Karen Allen made several student films and directed and acted in several plays. In 1976 Karen Allen made her first film appearance in the award winning small film, 'The Whidjitmaker'. Her first major film role came as Katy in 1978's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) which became one of the biggest hits of the year, obtained 'classic' status and launched a whole host of young 'hot' stars. However, shortly after Animal House opened Karen was struck by a rare and dangerous eyesight condition called Kerato Conjunctivitis. Luckily, the condition subsided and Karen Allen could continue her dramatic rise to the top. Lead roles in cult favourites like The Wanderers (1979) and the controversial thriller Cruising (1980) followed, as did smaller parts as in Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979). However, it was her performance in Rob Cohen's A Small Circle of Friends (1980), as well as her previously mentioned turn in Animal House, that caught the eye of a certain Steven Spielberg. He then cast her as the feisty heroine and Harrison Ford's co-star in his big budget blockbuster Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Raiders... became a HUGE hit in 1981-82 and is regarded by many as THE GREATEST action adventure film ever made.

Strangely following the huge success of Raiders' Karen Allen chose to spend over two years out of the limelight - concentrating on smaller, more personal projects. She won a major award for her performances on Broadway, won critical acclaim for her creation of Abra in the hugely successful ABC production of "East of Eden" (1981) (mini) and had parts in two smaller 'indie' films: Alan Parker's Shoot the Moon (1982) and Split Image (1982) co-starring James Woods and Peter Fonda. Karen Allen returned to the mainstream in 1984 with Until September (1984) and the hugely successful Starman (1984) co-starring Jeff Bridges and directed by John Carpenter (of Halloween fame), but once again decided to leave the limelight for a couple of years doing more stagework and some troubled indie films. While Karen Allen has worked almost constantly since then giving notable performances in Paul Newman's screen adaptation of The Glass Menagerie (1987), the Christmas hit Scrooged (1988)and Steven Soderbergh's underrated _King Of the Hill (1993)_ , she has not been able to scale the same dizzy heights as the early eighties hits. Most of her lead roles in feature films since Starman have not been that well received (_Animal Behaviour (1989)_ , _Ghost In the Machine (1993)_ and _Turning, The (1992)_ among them). However, Karen Allen has been seen to good effect on TV in films like Challenger (1990) (TV) in which she portrayed tragic schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe and All the Winters That Have Been (1997) (TV), co-starring Richard Chamberlain