It's easy to
imagine Karen Allen as New Hampshire schoolteacher
Christa McAuliffe in the ABC-TV movie "Challenger." McAuliffe,
who was killed when the space shuttle exploded four years ago,
was known for her charm, spirit and enthusiasm.
Allen's got
those qualities -- and she brings a little more to the part as
well. This being show business, there's the beauty element. She
shines with it. Thin lips that curl into frequent smiles. Eyes
that dance. Exotic cheekbones. Even when she peels off the
flight suit in the middle of a scene, revealing a drab
sweat-soaked T-shirt -- the kind Archie Bunker might wear to
fix the kitchen sink -- there's a down-and-dirty kind of
elegance about her.
There's only
one thing slightly jarring about Allen's participation in
Challenger. For much of her career she has linked herself
with non-commercial projects. She's currently involved in
training programs and performances with the theater group
Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., and is putting the
finishing touches on a screenplay based on Walker Percy's novel
The Second Coming. She also co-produced and acted in the
play Beautiful Bodies" at actress Olympia Dukakis's Whole
Theatre in Montclair, N.J.
"She's most
truly a theater performer," says actress Joanne Woodward, who
performed with Allen in stage and screen versions of The Glass
Menagerie and is a close friend. "The integrity of her work is
of paramount importance."
So why is
Allen headlining a movie about the events leading up to the
Challenger disaster? Talk about the commercialization of space.
Has she sold out?
"I've never
done anything for money," says Allen. "My first love is things
of limited commercial appeal. I could be happy doing
Shakespeare for the rest of my life."
"She cannot be
bought," asserts her husband, soap actor Kale Browne
(Another World), who also portrays Christa's husband,
Steven, in the movie. "Money doesn't influence her."
Allen does
admit she hesitated about taking the assignment. "There could
have been a script written about this where I would have set it
down and said, "Why do this?" But I don't feel this project in
any way tries to exploit or sensationalize the tragedy. I think
it really tries to give us back a little bit of the lives of
these seven people and teach an enormous audience out there who
may not remember any of the others besides Christa."
That's Allen
the humanist talking. The woman who empathizes. The caring,
sharing person who at age 13 volunteered to work at a day-care
center for retarded children. True to form, Allen met Browne at
a Whole Theatre benefit performance in 1987 where she was
singing and he was being auctioned off for a dance.
"Christa
couldn't have a more sensitive person portraying her," says
Browne. "She's careful, thoughtful and methodical on how she
approaches work and very considerate of other people."
Watching her
work this past summer on location around NASA's Houston
headquarters, you can tell she's no prima donna. She
good-naturedly goes through take after take despite the
oppressive July heat. If Martians were making a movie of Karen
Allen's life it would probably be called "Earth Girls Are
Easygoing."
Allen doesn't
see herself as glamorous. She lives a low-key lifestyle,
spending time at her Massachusetts farm, and enjoys designing
and knitting handmade sweaters. Friends and associates like
Joanne Woodward describe Allen as sensitive, but it's no
stretch to perceive her as tough. She wears cowboy boots and
there's a swagger to her walk. She smokes cigarettes tough-girl
style. And let's not forget that she played the hard-drinking,
adventure-seeking, keep-up-with-the-Indiana-Jones's Marion
Ravenwood in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark.
What made her
who she is today? Dad was an FBI agent and mom was a teacher
and Karen was artsy with fire in her eyes and flowers in her
hair.
"I had a very
conservative upbringing and I had a complex reaction to it,"
she says with a laugh. "I remember at a very young age knowing
that whatever I did with my life it was not going to be living
in the suburbs and moving every year from one place to another.
I saw myself as being able to live without any kind of
boundaries. I certainly don't think I got that from either one
of my parents. At 14, I remember thinking what I wanted to do
when I was 17 was to leave home on one of those boats that went
all over the world and I would scrub decks. I never went and
lived in the cafes and sat around Paris writing poetry. But I
did do other things."
After
graduating from high school in 1969, she studied design at New
York's Fashion Institute of Technology. The Illinois-born
actress first started acting around 1974 when she became
involved with Woshington, D.C.-area theater groups. In 1977 she
moved back to New York to try to prove herself as an actress.
Money was tight. She waitressed, painted houses, clerked in
bookstores and was the chief sandwich-maker in a
wine-and-cheese shop. Before director John Landis plucked her
from the economic twilight zone for a female lead in
National Lampoon's Animal House, Allen was living in the
poorhouse. That changed gradually. Steven Spielberg snapped her
up three years later for Raiders of the Lost Ark and
downtown Karen Allen's career had an uptown shine to it.
The name she
acquired working in some of Hollywood's biggest films certainly
helped get her this role. Of course, there's more to it than
that.
Says Barry
Bostwick, who portrays Challenger flight commander Dick Scobee,
"She brings excitement to the picture. She's a woman who jumps
into a part, grabs it and shakes it around."
"Karen's got
that All-American look," says co-executive producer George
Englund. "She's got ebullience. She is very, very close to
Christa in that feeling. And in her eyes, you can see all of
her feelings."
On these few
days in the middle of summer her eyes say that there is no
ambivilance about being part of Challenger because she
wants to bring to life the story about Christa McAuliffe and
the other shuttle crew members.
For Karen
Allen, this project isn't about fame, fortune or career
opporunity. It's about a film that Allen believes in. And
that's what Karen Allen is all about.
CUT LINES
Actress Karen Allen.
Karen Allen as Christa McAuliffe in shuttle training.