Karen Morrow

Karen Morrow is an American actress and singer born on December 15, 1936, in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. Her parents were both classical singers, and as a teenager she was inspired to pursue musical theater after hearing recordings by actress and singer Susan Johnson, beginning with the role of Meg in Brigadoon. She graduated from St. Joseph Academy in Des Moines in 1954 and from Clarke College in 1958, after which she relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she taught and performed before eventually moving to Manhattan.

Morrow's professional stage career began with an Off-Broadway appearance in Sing, Muse! in 1961, a performance that earned her a Theatre World Award in 1962. She went on to play Luce in a 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hart's The Boys from Syracuse and took on several roles at City Center over the following five years, including Cleo in The Most Happy Fella in 1966. Her first Broadway production, I Had a Ball, opened in December 1964 and closed approximately six months later. In 1966 she appeared as Mary Texas in A Joyful Noise, which closed after four previews and twelve performances. Two years after that, she played Na'Ama in I'm Solomon, which ran for nine previews and seven performances in 1968. In November 1971, she appeared as Babylove in The Grass Harp at the Martin Beck Theatre, a production co-starring Barbara Cook and based on Truman Capote's novel, which lasted one week but earned Morrow strong notices, particularly for her performance of the number "Babylove Miracle Show." In 1972 she appeared as Irene Jantzen in The Selling of the President, which achieved only five regular performances. Her final Broadway appearance came in December 1986, when she joined The Mystery of Edwin Drood as a replacement, playing The Princess Puffer and Miss Angela Prysock. She also appeared in the Broadway productions Happy Birthday, Mr. Abbott! and Oliver Oliver.

Outside of New York, Morrow's stage work has been extensive. She toured nationally as Parthy in the 1997 tour of the 1994 Broadway production of Show Boat and played Sally Adams in a 2000 production of Call Me Madam. Her regional credits include Die Fledermaus, a 1967 revival of It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, Hello, Dolly!, Oliver!, Sweeney Todd, A New Brain, and Carlotta in a 1990 Long Beach Civic Light Opera production of Follies. She has also performed in concerts with major orchestras in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Honolulu.

Beginning in 1969, Morrow relocated to Los Angeles, where she built a substantial television career. She appeared regularly on The Jim Nabors Hour in 1969 and made frequent appearances on The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show, and Match Game. She co-starred with Nancy Dussault in a short-lived local cable series titled Singin' and won an Emmy Award alongside Dussault for the PBS program Cabaret Tonight. Her television guest appearances span several decades and include Girl Talk, Love American Style, Medical Center, Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers, Karen, Starsky and Hutch, Tabitha, Alice, The Love Boat, Too Close for Comfort, Trapper John M.D., Goodnight Beantown, Falcon Crest, Murder She Wrote, Night Court, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. She appeared in three television movies: Cage Without a Key in 1975, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble in 1976, and I Was a Mail Order Bride in 1982. She was also a regular performer on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion.

Morrow has recorded extensively with composer Jerry Herman. Her recordings include An Evening with Jerry Herman from 1998 and the 2002 concept album Miss Spectacular, a studio recording of an unproduced Herman work. Her honors include the Theatre World Award, an Emmy Award, an Ovation Award, and five Drama-Logue Award nominations. She has taught musical theater performance at UCLA and has served on the faculty of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, where she continues to teach master classes in performance and audition skills.