Happy 113th Birthday to Suzanne Kaaren!
She was born in NYC on March 21, 1912.
Were she still with us, she would be 113 years old. Let's all celebrate!
So who is Suzanne Kaaren?
Does the name Gail Tempest jog your memory, or ring any bells?
Fans of the 3 Stooges films will immediately remember the lovely lady wrongly accused of murder in '36 Disorder in the Court. Suzanne plays Gail Tempest....and who can forget her dance routine, showing off her lovely legs to those sitting in court that day?
She also appeared in the Stooges '39 Yes, We Have No Bonanza, and in '42 film What's The Matador?
She also appeared opposite Bela Lugosi in The Devil Bat in '40.
Wikipedia provides us the following:
A native of New York City, she was born Sophie Kischnerman on March 21, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. Kaaren attended Erasmus Hall High School and Hunter College before being signed by 20th Century Fox in September 1933. In 1931, she won a high-jumping contest in 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.
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.
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.
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.
Her final appearance on film was an uncredited role as the Duchess of Park Avenue (Manhattan) in 1984's The Cotton Club.
She resided in a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment at 100 Central Park South. According to her obituary, real estate developer (and later the 45th president of the United States) Donald Trump bought the building and threatened to evict all the tenants and tear it down to build something more lucrative. Kaaren's apartment was assessed at $750,000, but she refused to budge, and, in 1998, a court ruled that Trump could turn the apartments into condos, but had to allow the rent-controlled tenants to remain. She was, therefore, given $750,000 compensation.
On August 27, 2004, Kaaren died from pneumonia at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, aged 92.
Were she still with us, she would be 113 years old. Let's all celebrate!
So who is Suzanne Kaaren?
Does the name Gail Tempest jog your memory, or ring any bells?
Fans of the 3 Stooges films will immediately remember the lovely lady wrongly accused of murder in '36 Disorder in the Court. Suzanne plays Gail Tempest....and who can forget her dance routine, showing off her lovely legs to those sitting in court that day?
She also appeared in the Stooges '39 Yes, We Have No Bonanza, and in '42 film What's The Matador?
She also appeared opposite Bela Lugosi in The Devil Bat in '40.
Wikipedia provides us the following:
A native of New York City, she was born Sophie Kischnerman on March 21, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. Kaaren attended Erasmus Hall High School and Hunter College before being signed by 20th Century Fox in September 1933. In 1931, she won a high-jumping contest in 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.
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.
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.
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.
Her final appearance on film was an uncredited role as the Duchess of Park Avenue (Manhattan) in 1984's The Cotton Club.
She resided in a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment at 100 Central Park South. According to her obituary, real estate developer (and later the 45th president of the United States) Donald Trump bought the building and threatened to evict all the tenants and tear it down to build something more lucrative. Kaaren's apartment was assessed at $750,000, but she refused to budge, and, in 1998, a court ruled that Trump could turn the apartments into condos, but had to allow the rent-controlled tenants to remain. She was, therefore, given $750,000 compensation.
On August 27, 2004, Kaaren died from pneumonia at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, aged 92.
