James Karen

Karen was born Jacob Karnofsky in Wilkes-Barre, in northeastern Pennsylvania, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Mae (née Freed) and Joseph H. Karnofsky, a produce dealer. His uncle was Morris Carnovsky, a prominent actor and co-founder of the Group Theatre. [4]

As a young man, Karen was encouraged to be an actor by U.S. Democratic Congressman Daniel J. Flood, who was an amateur thespian himself, recruiting him into a production at the Little Theatre of Wilkes-Barre.[5] He attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York.[6] Karen also served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.[7]

Karen's big break came when he was asked to understudy Karl Malden in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire.[4]

On television, he played Dr. Burke on As the World Turns and was the original Lincoln Tyler on All My Children.[4] He was perhaps best known for his recurring role on the television series Eight Is Enough.[4] He is also well-known on the East Coast for his 20 years as television and radio spokesman for the Pathmark supermarket chain.[8] On the streets of New York, Karen was known as "Mr. Pathmark".[2]

Karen appeared in an episode of the 1977 NBC situation comedy The Kallikaks,[1] and played Earl Silbert in the 1979 miniseries Blind Ambition, and M*A*S*H season 11, episode 12 on 1/23/83. A decade later, he appeared in an episode of The Golden Girls as a prospective love interest for Dorothy. He is also known for having played Herbert Purcell, a businessman and leader of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter, in a 1981 episode of The Jeffersons; and the evil tycoon Nathan Lassiter, who killed the town of Walnut Grove in the final TV movie of Little House on the Prairie.[9] Karen was a lifelong member of The Actors Studio.[10] Karen's other notable film credits include The China Syndrome and Oliver Stone's Wall Street.[8]

Perhaps his best known roles were in the low-budget horror comedy The Return of the Living Dead, where Karen starred as the manager of a medical warehouse who inadvertently releases a gas that re-animates the dead,[11] and in Poltergeist where he played the real-estate developer who built the California planned community of Cuesta Verde on top of a former cemetery.[11]

In a 2006 interview about his role in The Return of the Living Dead, Karen noted that he helped write most scenes for his character: “It was the deal where he figures out he’s becoming a zombie and decides to incinerate himself in the crematorium...He kisses his wedding ring as he goes in. It was a very emotional scene, but it also got me out of being one of the rain-drenched zombies milling around outside the place at the end of the film. I didn't really want to do all that muddy stuff".[11]

In 2006, Karen did a special "call-in" to Prof. Charlie Cino's COMM 150 class (at Penn State Scranton), where he answered students' questions about his career and/or the industry.

Karen was set to appear in Superman Returns (2006) as Ben Hubbard, but his scenes were ultimately cut.[12] Later in his career, Karen was recognized for his role as Martin Frohm in the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness.[1] His final film roles were in the low-budget films Bender (2016) and Cynthia (2018).[11]

He was married to Susan Reed (1926–2010), the actress and folk singer,[13] with whom he had one son, Reed. Reed's godfather is Buster Keaton,[11] Karen's good friend.[11][14] Karen and Reed divorced in 1967. He married Alba Francesca in 1986.[11]

Karen died on October 23, 2018, at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 94, about a month shy of his 95th birthday.[15] The cause was cardiorespiratory arrest.[16]

• Sources:[11][16][17][18]

Karen was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actor for his role in The Return of the Living Dead in 1985.[3] For his contributions to the horror film industry, Karen received an honorary Saturn Award in 1998.[3] He was nominated for a Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Unborn in 1991.[3]

• Voisin, Scott, Character Kings: Hollywood's Familiar Faces Discuss the Art & Business of Acting. BearManor Media, 2009. ISBN 978-1-59393-342-5.

• James Karen at IMDb
• James Karen at the Internet Broadway Database
• Great Character Actors / James Karen
• Pathmark TV commercial with James Karen on YouTube