Suzanne Kaaren

Biography

Suzanne Kaaren (March 21, 1912 – August 27, 2004) was an American B-movie actress and dancer who starred in stock film genres of the 1930s and 1940s: horror films, westerns, comedies, and romances.

== Early life == A native of New York City, Kaaren was born Sophie Kischnerman on March 21, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. She attended Erasmus Hall High School and Hunter College before being signed by 20th Century Fox in September 1933. In 1931, she won the high-jump at a New York City school contest. Her parents refused to let her compete in the Olympic Games. She collected butterflies as a hobby and had several books filled with the insects.

== Career ==

=== Early career === She acted with stock companies and posed as a model for commercial painters and cigarette advertising. Kaaren appeared in dramatic parts in New York theaters and trained at the Hedgerow Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early on, Kaaren was a Ziegfeld Girl and later was one of the original Rockettes. She performed on stage on December 27, 1932, the night Radio City Music Hall opened.

=== Movie actress ===

Kaaren left for Hollywood in October 1933. Her starting salary with Fox Films was $150 per week. She was eventually cast opposite Tim McCoy in Ridin' Gents, a Monogram Pictures production. She was then signed by Republic Pictures to play a character in From Rags to Riches. Ridin' Gents was filmed without either McCoy or Kaaren. She joined a troupe assembled by producer Walter Wanger, which also included Gloria Youngblood. The theatrical company was known as Trade Winds. The comedy When's Your Birthday? (1937) showcased the zany Joe E. Brown, with Kaaren among the supporting players in an RKO Radio Pictures movie about an astrologer.

Kaaren figured prominently in several Three Stooges comedy short films. They are Disorder in the Court, Yes, We Have No Bonanza, and What's the Matador?. Miracles for Sale (1939) was based on the novel Death From A Tophat by Clayton Rawson. Kaaren plays a woman who is separated into halves and then joined together again suspensefully. The murder mystery has Robert Young and Florence Rice in prominent roles. She starred opposite Bela Lugosi in The Devil Bat. The cult film of the horror film genre is a Poverty Row production released by Producers Releasing Corporation. In the movie, Lugosi breeds giant bats to attack people. Her final appearance on film was an uncredited role as the Duchess of Park Avenue (Manhattan) in 1984's The Cotton Club.

=== Theater === Kaaren stepped into the character usually played by Ann Thomas in a Broadway presentation of Chicken Every Sunday. Staged in September 1944, Thomas left the production to go to Hollywood. In July 1946, Kaaren's elder son, Brewster, was in the play with her as an eight-month-old. She was also joined by her husband, Sidney Blackmer, on stage at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. In April 1953, the Blackmers starred in Glad Tidings in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A month later, the show moved to the Quarterback Theatre, also in Atlantic City. In 1959, Kaaren appeared in The Royal Family at the Hinsdale Summer Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Linda Darnell starred; Karyn Kupcinet and Stuart Brent were also in the cast. The theme was a famous family of the American stage.