Suzanne Kaaren (March 21, 1912 – August 27, 2004) was an American B-movie actress and dancer who starred in stock film genres of the 1930s and 1940s: horror films, westerns, comedies, and romances.
A native of New York City,[1] she was born Sophie Kischnerman on March 21, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. Kaaren attended Erasmus Hall High School[2] and Hunter College[3] 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.[citation needed]
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 TheatreinPhiladelphia, 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.
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.
Kaaren (seated with hat) watches as Bud Jamison (right) endures The Three Stooges' unorthodox courtroom behavior in Disorder in the Court.Kaaren dancing in courtroom in Disorder in the Court, 1936
Kaaren stepped into the character usually played by Ann Thomas in a Broadway 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, Sidney Blackmer, on stage at the Bucks County PlayhouseinNew Hope, Pennsylvania. In April 1953, the Blackmers starred in Glad TidingsinAtlantic City, New Jersey. A month later, the show moved to the Quarterback Theatre, also in Atlantic City.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
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 remained together until Blackmer's death in October 1973. The marriage produced two sons, Brewster and Jonathen.[2]
The Blackmers had lived in his family homeinSalisbury, North Carolina, until it was damaged 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 (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.[7][8]
