Ilene Kristen

Ilene Kristen, born Ilene Schatz on July 30, 1952, in Brooklyn, New York, is an American actress whose career has spanned Broadway, daytime television, film, and music. She is the elder child of Arthur Schatz, a hairdresser from Williamsburg, Brooklyn who operated beauty parlors across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Palm Beach, Florida, and Myrna Levin of Borough Park, Brooklyn. She has a younger sister, Karen Schatz. Kristen lived in Brooklyn until age 13, when her family relocated to the Forest Hills section of Queens, and then moved again in 1968 to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Her education included PS 217 in Brooklyn, Russell Sage Junior High School in Queens, and Professional Children's School in Manhattan, after which she attended Finch College, majoring in Drama and minoring in Art History.

Her training in dance came through Sara Felcher, Alwin Nikolais, and Matt Mattox, and she later studied acting with Jack Waltzer. Her early inspirations were Bambi Linn and Sondra Lee, and her decision to pursue professional acting was shaped by seeing the Off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks. Her first television appearance came in 1961 on bandleader Ted Steele's Dance Party, based in Newark, New Jersey. At age 14, she was hired as a dancer on NBC's The Bell Telephone Hour by choreographer Matt Mattox, marking her first professional job.

Kristen's Broadway career began in 1967 when she danced in the ensemble of Henry, Sweet Henry, a musical based on The World of Henry Orient. That production marked the first of several collaborations with choreographer Michael Bennett, with whom she subsequently worked on the television show Let Us Entertain You, starring Robert Morse, and on Pinocchio, featuring Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits. During her senior year at Professional Children's School, she toured with a comedy revue called The Six New Happenings, which played dates in Dallas and Houston and was booked into the Sahara Hotel in Lake Tahoe before the venue discovered most of the cast was underage.

Her Broadway breakthrough came in 1972 when she was cast as Patty Simcox in the original production of Grease, a role she held for two years. Walter Bobbie, who originated the role of Roger in that same production, would later appear alongside Kristen on the daytime drama Loving. She also worked odd jobs connected to major Broadway productions during this period, including catering the opening-night party for Lenny and gold-leafing in Robin Wagner's scenery department for Jesus Christ Superstar. Her Broadway work continued through 1985 and included the musical Mayor, based on Ed Koch's memoir, with music by Charles Strouse and a book by Warren Leight, in which she played Leona Helmsley and other characters.

Kristen made her screen debut in the 1971 comedy film Preacherman in the female lead role. In 1975, she was cast as Delia Ryan on the ABC daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope, a role she held until 1979 and returned to in 1982 and again from 1986 to 1989. After leaving the show the first time, she moved to California, where she appeared in the film Why Would I Lie?, starring Treat Williams, and played Winona, a prostitute, in The Lady in Red, in a scene with Christopher Lloyd. In 1982, she played Peter Falk's sister-in-law in a stage production of Knives, written and directed by John Cassavetes. That same year she appeared on One Life to Live as Georgina Whitman. She also starred in the comedy revue Strange Behavior from 1983 to 1984, which led to her being considered for a role on NBC's Saturday Night Live.

In 1986, following a stint in Moss Hart's Light Up the Sky, Kristen returned to Ryan's Hope. During the 1986 to 1990 period, she also performed on the club circuit with rock bands and jazz musicians at Mikell's on the Upper West Side and appeared in the Off-Broadway musical Cowboy, a tribute to painter Charlie "Kid" Russell. In the final three years of Ryan's Hope, she volunteered at the Prince George homeless shelter, working through the Children's Aid Society to introduce children to the arts and film; a group of those children later appeared in several episodes of the show.

From 1990 to 1991, Kristen portrayed Norma Gilpin on the daytime drama Loving. She subsequently appeared in three Off-Broadway productions — All That Glitters, Trust, and The Gig at the Goodspeed — and played Madeleine Thompson, an alcoholic wannabe socialite, on Another World. In the late 1990s, she served as co-artistic director and literary manager for Musical Theatre Works alongside Gordon Greenberg, and traveled to California to serve as a producer on the film Angels with Angles, starring Frank Gorshin and Rodney Dangerfield.

After returning to New York City in 2001, Kristen was approached for the role of Roxy Balsom, a gambling, beer-guzzling hairdresser on One Life to Live, the day before the September 11 attacks. She played the character for ten years, from 2001 to 2012, and received Daytime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in both 2004 and 2005 for that role. Between 2013 and 2015, she appeared on General Hospital reprising her Ryan's Hope character Delia Ryan, who was revealed to be the natural mother of Ava Jerome. Guest appearances on other television programs have included Law & Order, The Sopranos, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Unforgettable. She has also appeared on the Daytime Emmy-winning digital series The Bay and Pride: The Series, and in 2018 played Dolly Faye in Mélange, a pilot featuring Morgan Fairchild, written and produced by Tom D'Angora.

In 1977, Kristen co-founded the Jean Renoir Cinema with Ray Blanco and Nancy Newell, one of the first women admitted to the Projectionists Guild. Through Blanco's distribution company, Bauer International, later Liberty Films, the cinema facilitated the first U.S. theatrical distributions of early German features by Wim Wenders, including Kings of the Road. Throughout the 1990s, Kristen performed regularly with her band at the Triad Theatre. In 2015, she released her debut album, I'm Not Done With U Yet!, produced by Scott Yahney and co-written with various collaborators, available on Amazon and iTunes. As a songwriter, she has written album cuts for Kaitlyn Lusk and jazz guitarist Chuck Loeb and has produced for the label Tuxedo Records.

Kristen has been a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre since 1984 and serves on its Board of Directors. She currently resides in Manhattan with director Gary Donatelli.