Suzanne Kaaren
Encyclopedia
Suzanne Kaaren was an American
B-movie
actress who starred in stock film genre
s of the 1930s and 1940s: horror
, western and romance
s. She was born in Brooklyn, New York.
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.
for commercial painters and cigarette advertising. Kaaren appeared in dramatic parts in New York theaters and trained at the Hedgerow Theatre
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
. This was the same venue
that produced actress Ann Harding
.
She was one of the original Rockettes
. Kaaren performed on stage on December 27, 1932, the night Radio City Music Hall
opened.
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.
In October 1941, Kaaren was added to the cast of I Married an Angel
. She portrayed a maid named Simone, and was uncredited. In October 1943, Pete Smith
assigned Kaaren and Harry Barris
the leading roles in an MGM
motion picture which was to be called Practical Joker. The film was never made.
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?
. In the latter, she depicts Dolores Sanchez, and has the fourth lead after Curly Howard
, Larry Fine
, and Moe Howard
.
I Married an Angel
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 is uncredited role as the Duchess of Park Avenue (Manhattan)
in 1984's The Cotton Club
.
, on June 13, 1943, in a civil ceremony in Santa Ana, California
. Raquel Torres
was a witness at the wedding. Blackmer was married previously to Lenore Ulric
.
By this time, Kaaren was under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
. The marriage was a turbulent one from the outset. The couple separated in September 1943 and Blackmer instructed his attorney to file for divorce in October, but the couple would remain together until Blackmer's death in 1973. The marriage produced two sons, Brewster and Jonathen.
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 on stage at the Bucks County Playhouse
in New Hope, Pennsylvania
. In addition to Brewster, the Blackmers had another son, Jonathen. 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.
Sidney Blackmer died in October 1973. The Blackmers had lived in his family home in Salisbury, North Carolina
, until it was destroyed by fire in 1984. Afterward, she resided in a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment at 100 Central Park South. According to her obituary, real estate developer Donald Trump
bought the building and threatened to tear it down to build something more lucrative. Blackmer refused to budge, and, in 1998, a court ruled that Trump had to allow the rent-controlled tenants to remain.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
actress who starred in stock film genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s of the 1930s and 1940s: horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
, western and romance
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
s. She was born in Brooklyn, New York.
Education and athletics
Kaaren attended Erasmus Hall High SchoolErasmus Hall High School
Erasmus Hall Campus High School is a four-year public high school in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, United States operated by the New York City Department of Education....
and Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
before being signed by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
in September 1933. In 1931 she won a high-jumping contest in a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
school contest. Her parents refused to let her compete in the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
. She collected butterflies as a hobby and had several books filled with the insects.
Early career
She acted with stock companies and posed as a modelModel (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
for commercial painters and cigarette advertising. Kaaren appeared in dramatic parts in New York theaters and trained at the Hedgerow Theatre
Hedgerow Theatre
Hedgerow Theatre is a theatre company based in Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. It is the oldest residential repertory theatre company in the United States....
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. This was the same venue
Theater (structure)
A theater or theatre is a structure where theatrical works or plays are performed or other performances such as musical concerts may be produced. While a theater is not required for performance , a theater serves to define the performance and audience spaces...
that produced actress Ann Harding
Ann Harding
Ann Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.-Early years:Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life...
.
She was one of the original Rockettes
The Rockettes
The Rockettes are a precision dance company performing out of the Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, New York City. During the Christmas season, the Rockettes have performed five shows a day, seven days a week, for 77 years...
. Kaaren performed on stage on December 27, 1932, the night Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
opened.
Movie actress
Kaaren left for Hollywood in October 1933. Her starting salary was $150 per week, and was eventually cast opposite Tim McCoyTim McCoy
Col. Tim McCoy was an American actor, military officer, and expert on American Indian life and customs.-Early years:...
in Ridin' Gents, a Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation is a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to...
production. She was then signed by Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
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
Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger was an American film producer. An intellectual and a socially conscious movie executive who produced provocative message movies and glittering romantic melodramas, Wanger's career began at Paramount Pictures in the 1920s and led him to work at virtually every major studio as either a...
, which also included Gloria Youngblood. The theatrical company was known as Trade Winds. The comedy When's Your Birthday?
When's Your Birthday?
When's Your Birthday? American film directed by Harry Beaumont. While original prints of this film had a cartoon sequence in Technicolor directed by Bob Clampett and Leon Schlesinger, most prints have the sequence in black-and-white.- Plot summary :Dustin Willoughby When's Your Birthday? (1937)...
(1937) showcased the zany Joe E. Brown
Joe E. Brown (comedian)
Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...
, with Kaaren among the supporting players in an RKO Radio Pictures movie about an astrologer.
I Married an Angel
I Married An Angel is a musical comedy by Rodgers and Hart. It was adapted from a play by Hungarian playwright János Vaszary, entitled Angyalt Vettem Felesegul. The book was by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with music by Rodgers and lyrics by Hart. The story concerns a wealthy banker who,...
. She portrayed a maid named Simone, and was uncredited. In October 1943, Pete Smith
Pete Smith (film producer)
Pete Smith was a film producer and narrator of "short subject" films from 1931 to 1955....
assigned Kaaren and Harry Barris
Harry Barris
Harry Barris was an American popular singer and songwriter.Born in New York City, he was a member of the Rhythm Boys, a late 1920s singing trio which included Al Rinker and Bing Crosby, and was Crosby's entry into show business...
the leading roles in an MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
motion picture which was to be called Practical Joker. The film was never made.
Kaaren figured prominently in several Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
comedy short films. They are Disorder in the Court
Disorder in the Court
Disorder in the Court is the 15th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
, Yes, We Have No Bonanza
Yes, We Have No Bonanza
Yes, We Have No Bonanza is the 39th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
, and What's the Matador?
What's the Matador?
What's the Matador? is the 62nd short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.- Plot :...
. In the latter, she depicts Dolores Sanchez, and has the fourth lead after Curly Howard
Curly Howard
Jerome Lester "Jerry" Horwitz , better known by his stage name Curly Howard, was an American comedian and vaudevillian. He is best known as a member of the American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges, along with his older brothers Moe Howard and Shemp Howard, and actor Larry Fine...
, Larry Fine
Larry Fine
Louis Feinberg , known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American comedian and actor, who is best known as a member of the comedy act The Three Stooges.-Early life:...
, and Moe Howard
Moe Howard
Moses Harry Horwitz , known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades...
.
I Married an Angel
I Married an Angel
I Married An Angel is a musical comedy by Rodgers and Hart. It was adapted from a play by Hungarian playwright János Vaszary, entitled Angyalt Vettem Felesegul. The book was by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with music by Rodgers and lyrics by Hart. The story concerns a wealthy banker who,...
was based on the novel Death From A Tophat by Clayton Rawson
Clayton Rawson
Clayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies...
. Kaaren plays a woman who is separated into halves and then joined together again suspensefully. The murder mystery has Robert Young
Robert Young (actor)
Robert George Young was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. .-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father...
and Florence Rice
Florence Rice
Florence Rice was an American film actress.Florence Davenport Rice was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Grantland Rice and Katherine Hollis, who became an actress during the early 1930s and after several Broadway roles, eventually made her way to Hollywood where she acted in almost fifty...
in prominent roles.
She starred opposite Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
in The Devil Bat
The Devil Bat
The Devil Bat is a black-and-white comedy-horror movie which was produced by Producers Releasing Corporation and directed by Jean Yarbrough...
. The cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
of the horror film genre is a Poverty Row
Poverty Row
Poverty Row is a slang term used in Hollywood from the late silent period through the mid-fifties to refer to a variety of small and mostly short-lived B movie studios...
production released by Producers Releasing Corporation
Producers Releasing Corporation
Producers Releasing Corporation was one of the more lower-end Hollywood film studios on Poverty Row from the late '30s to the mid-'40s. PRC, as it was commonly known, made low-budget B-movies for the lower-half of a double bill. A few of its films have gained a respectable reputation over the...
. In the movie Lugosi breeds giant bats to attack people.
Her final appearance on film is uncredited role as the Duchess of Park Avenue (Manhattan)
Park Avenue (Manhattan)
Park Avenue is a wide boulevard that carries north and southbound traffic in New York City borough of Manhattan. Through most of its length, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east....
in 1984's The Cotton Club
The Cotton Club (film)
The Cotton Club is a 1984 crime-drama, centered on a famed Harlem jazz club of the 1930s, the Cotton Club.The movie was co-written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, choreographed by Henry LeTang, and starred Richard Gere, Diane Lane, and Gregory Hines...
.
Marriage
She married stage and screen actor, Sidney BlackmerSidney Blackmer
Sidney Alderman Blackmer was an American actor.Blackmer was born and raised in Salisbury, North Carolina. He started off in an insurance and financial business but gave up on it. While working as a builder's laborer on a new building, he saw a Pearl White serial being filmed and immediately...
, on June 13, 1943, in a civil ceremony in Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana is the county seat and second most populous city in Orange County, California, and with a population of 324,528 at the 2010 census, Santa Ana is the 57th-most populous city in the United States....
. Raquel Torres
Raquel Torres
Raquel Torres was a Mexican-born American film actress. Her sister was actress Renee Torres....
was a witness at the wedding. Blackmer was married previously to Lenore Ulric
Lenore Ulric
Lenore Ulric was a star of the Broadway stage and Hollywood films of the silent-film and early sound era. Her father, Franz Xavier Ulrich, was a United States Army hospital steward...
.
By this time, Kaaren was under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
. The marriage was a turbulent one from the outset. The couple separated in September 1943 and Blackmer instructed his attorney to file for divorce in October, but the couple would remain together until Blackmer's death in 1973. The marriage produced two sons, Brewster and Jonathen.
Theater
Kaaren stepped into the character usually played by Ann Thomas in a BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
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 on stage at the Bucks County Playhouse
Bucks County Playhouse
The Bucks County Playhouse is the State Theater of Pennsylvania, and is located in New Hope, Pennsylvania.When the Hope Mills burnt in 1790, the grist mills were rebuilt as the New Hope Mills by Benjamin Parry. ....
in New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, formerly known as Coryell's Ferry, is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 2,528 at the 2010 census. The borough lies on the west bank of the Delaware River at its confluence with Aquetong Creek. A two-lane bridge carries automobile and foot traffic across the...
. In addition to Brewster, the Blackmers had another son, Jonathen. In April 1953 the Blackmers starred in Glad Tidings in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
. 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
Linda Darnell
Linda Darnell was an American film actress.Darnell was a model as a child, and progressed to theater and film acting as an adolescent. At the encouragement of her mother, she made her first film in 1939, and appeared in supporting roles in big budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s...
starred; Karyn Kupcinet
Karyn Kupcinet
Karyn Kupcinet was an American actress who was found dead at her West Hollywood, California home, in the days following the JFK assassination. It has been theorized that her death, officially ruled a homicide, was connected to the assassination or was the result of an accidental fall...
and Stuart Brent were also in the cast. The theme was a famous family of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
stage.
Sidney Blackmer died in October 1973. The Blackmers had lived in his family home in Salisbury, North Carolina
Salisbury, North Carolina
Salisbury is a city in Rowan County in North Carolina, a state of the United States of America. The population was 33,663 in the 2010 Census . It is the county seat of Rowan County...
, until it was destroyed by fire in 1984. Afterward, she resided in a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment at 100 Central Park South. According to her obituary, real estate developer Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
bought the building and threatened to tear it down to build something more lucrative. Blackmer refused to budge, and, in 1998, a court ruled that Trump had to allow the rent-controlled tenants to remain.