Karen Akers

• Name — Karen Akers • Birth Name — 13 October 1945 • Birthplace — New York City • Years Active — 1982–present • Spouse — * Jim Akers (m. 1968 – mid-1980s) • Education — Hunter College • Website — http: karenakers.com/ • Children — 2

Born on October 13, 1945, in New York City, Akers is the daughter of Heinrick C. Orth-Pallavicini, an insurance consultant, and Mary Orth-Pallavicini, a hospital chaplain. Her father was European, and her grandmother was Russian. Raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, she attended Manhattanville College and is a graduate of Hunter College.

Akers's professional career began in 1970 in supper clubs in Washington. She honed her acting skills as an amateur performer, starting in The Arlington Players' production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. In 1978 Christian Blackwood saw Akers performing and invited her to tape a program for German television in Hamburg. The result, "Karen Akers: A Voice From New York", was "enthusiastically received at the Montreux Film Festival" and was later broadcast in the United States on PBS as Presenting Karen Akers. Akers first appeared on Broadway in the original production of Nine, a musical directed by Tommy Tune and based on the Federico Fellini film 8½, as Luisa Contini, the wife of promiscuous film director Guido Contini (played by Raúl Juliá). The show opened May 9, 1982, and had a successful run of 732 performances, closing February 4, 1984. Akers won a Theatre World Award for her performance. She was one of three actresses in the show nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, with the award eventually going to fellow cast member Liliane Montevecchi. Beginning in 1985, Akers appeared in such feature films as Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (as a celluloid chanteuse), and in Heartburn (as the mistress of Jack Nicholson's character). In the mid-1980s Akers performed in the one-woman show An Evening With Karen Akers. She appeared on Broadway in Grand Hotel, a musical adaptation of the novel and film, scored by Robert Wright, George Forrest, and Maury Yeston. In Grand Hotel Akers was reunited with Nine director Tommy Tune and Nine cast members Liliane Motevecchi and Kathi Moss. The show opened November 12, 1989, for a run of 1,018 performances, through April 19, 1992. Akers covered "Sooner or Later" in her 1991 album Unchained Melodies, a song written for Madonna by Stephen Sondheim the year before. Akers is bilingual, singing in French and in English.

Akers married Jim Akers in 1968,. a union which yielded two sons, and ended in divorce. On September 19, 1993, Akers married Kevin Patrick Power, vice president of the satellite communications company Orion Network Systems, in a Roman Catholic ceremony at St. Paul's Chapel of Columbia University in New York. As of April 2000, Akers was living in London.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1984 — Hart to Hart — Raquel Moskowitz — Episode: "Whispers in the Wings" • 1985 — The Equalizer — Cynthia — Episode: "China Rain" • 1987 — Cheers — Sally — Episode: "My Fair Clavin" • 1991 — Today — Herself — Episode: 5 November 1991 • 1983–1997 — Great Performances — Herself — Episodes: *"Ellington: The Music Lives On" (1983) *"Ira Gershwin at 100: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall" (1997)

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1985 — The Purple Rose of Cairo — Kitty Haynes — Also on the soundtrack, uncredited, performing "One Day at a Time". • 1986 — Heartburn — Thelma Rice • 1988 — Vibes — Hillary — (final film role)

• 2005: Karen Akers: On Stage at Wolf Trap