Ilene Kristen
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Ilene Kristen | |
---|---|
Born | Ilene Schatz July 30, 1952 Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1971–present |
Website | http://www.ilenekristen.net/ |
Ilene Kristen (born Ilene Schatz; July 30, 1952) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as
Early years
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Ilene Kristen was born Ilene Schatz in Brooklyn, New York City,[1] the elder child of Arthur Schatz of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Myrna Levin of Borough Park, Brooklyn. Her father was a hairdresser who owned a series of beauty parlors across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Palm Beach, Florida. Ilene has a younger sister, Karen Schatz.
She lived in Brooklyn until the age of 13 when her family moved to the Forest Hills area of Queens, where she lived for two years. In 1968, the family moved to the Upper West Side in Manhattan. She attended PS 217 in Brooklyn, Russell Sage Junior High School in Queens, and Professional Children's School in Manhattan. She then went to Finch College where she majored in Drama and minored in Art History.
She studied dance under Sara Felcher, Alwin Nikolais, and Matt Mattox. Her early inspirations were Bambi Linn and Sondra Lee. She decided to become a professional actor after seeing the Off-Broadway musical, The Fantasticks. She later studied acting with Jack Waltzer.
Career
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Her first television appearance was in 1961 [citation needed] on bandleader Ted Steele's Dance Party, based in Newark, New Jersey. [citation needed]
Her first professional job was on NBC's
In her senior year of professional children’s school, she was on the road with a comedy revue, The Six New Happenings. The revue toured in Dallas and Houston. They were booked in the largest room at the Sahara Hotel in Lake Tahoe. But once the Sahara realized that most of the cast was under-aged, had them kicked out, replaced by Johnny Carson.[2]
She was set to replace the lead actress in the show Steambath, but the show was closed before Kristen got to take over the role. Its producer Dick Scanga felt bad for Kristen, so he offered her a job in his producing office. She ended up working odd jobs on major Broadway productions: catering the opening-night party of the show Lenny (which later became the 1974 film by Bob Fosse) and gold-leafing in Robin Wagner’s scenery department for Jesus Christ Superstar. She made her screen debut in the female lead role in the 1971 comedy film Preacherman.
Her big break came when she auditioned for the role of Patty Simcox in the original Broadway production of Grease (1972), in which she starred for two years.
In 1975, she auditioned for and landed the role of Delia Ryan in the
On television in 1982, she did a stint on
In 1986, after starring in Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky, Kristen was asked to return to Ryan’s Hope. Kristen, always adept with comedy, says that her last four years at Ryan’s Hope were happy ones, as the writers gave her a lot of funny material to work with. During this period (1986-90), Kristen toured around the club circuits, performing with rock bands and jazz musicians at Mikell's in the Upper West Side. She did another off-Broadway show, Cowboy, a musical tribute to the life of the painter Charlie “Kid” Russell.
During the final three years of
From 1990-1991, she starred in
In the late 1990s, Kristen served as the co-artistic director and literary manager for Musical Theatre Works, alongside Gordon Greenberg. She came out to California to serve as one of the producers for the film Angels with Angles, starring Frank Gorshin and Rodney Dangerfield.
After returning to New York City in 2001, she was approached the day before the September 11 attacks for the role of the gambling, beer-guzzling and always-inappropriate hairdresser Roxy Balsom on One Life to Live.[4][5] At that point in time, she had begun to question the importance of acting; she’d always seen performance as a healing art, and felt that the kind of character that she wanted to create should be entertaining, vivacious, and funny—because people needed it.[4][5] She ended up playing Roxy Balsom for ten years. Kristen was nominated for two consecutive Daytime Emmy Awards in 2004 and 2005 in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series category for her role as Roxy in One Life to Live.[1]
After One Life to Live was off the air, she featured on
Kristen is a supporter of the emerging digital series genre and has appeared on the Daytime Emmy-winning series
Personal life
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Kristen currently resides in Manhattan with director Gary Donatelli. She has been a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre since 1984 and she is on their Board of Directors.
Music
This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. (March 2022) |
Throughout the 1990s, she was a regular performer with her band at the Triad Theatre.
In 2015, Kristen released her first album, I’m Not Done With U Yet!, produced by Scott Yahney and self-penned with various co-writers. It is available on Amazon and iTunes.
As a songwriter, Ilene has penned album cuts for teenage phenom Kaitlyn Lusk and jazz guitarist Chuck Loeb, as well as produced for the label Tuxedo Records.
Jean Renoir Cinema
In 1977, Kristen founded the Jean Renoir Cinema with Ray Blanco, a young Cuban anti-Castro emigré, and Nancy Newell, one of the first women ever admitted to the Projectionists Guild.[8] Through Blanco’s distribution company, Bauer International (later Liberty Films), the Renoir saw through the first U.S. theatrical distributions of Wim Wenders’s early German features (including Kings of the Road and Alice in the Cities), as well as films by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Alexander Kluge, Gregory Nava’s The Confessions of Amans, and Martha Coolidge’s Not a Pretty Picture. The Jean Renoir also presented the first American screenings of films from Luis Buñuel’s Mexican period, including Illusion Travels by Streetcar, Daughter of Deceit, and El Bruto.[9] The Renoir also mounted one of the first significant film festivals devoted to Cuban cinema in the United States.[10]
In the opening weekend, Blanco and Kristen screened films by its namesake director Jean Renoir: Toni, La Marseillaise, and La Bête Humaine. The lobby featured a framed personal letter from Renoir, which gave Kristen and Blanco permission to use his name for the theater.
The Renoir remained open until the end of 1977 due to plumbing and landlord problems.
During this time, Kristen produced a film, The Aftermath, starring Karen Allen.
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1971 | Preacherman | Mary Lou | |
1979 | The Lady in Red | Wynona | |
1979 | Night-Flowers | Krishna Woman | |
1980 | Family
|
Lotus | Episode: "Such a Fine Line" |
1980 | Why Would I Lie? | Waitress | |
1982 | One Life to Live | Georgina Whitman
|
Recurring role |
1985 | Desperately Seeking Susan | Party Guest | |
1987 | The Shaman
|
Helen | |
1975–1979, 1982–1983, 1986–1989 | Ryan's Hope | Delia Ryan | Series regular Nominated - Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Comic Performance by an Actress: Daytime (1988) Nominated - Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Villainess: Daytime (1989) |
1990–1991 | Loving | Norma Gilpin | Series regular |
1994 | Law & Order | Sandra Krane | Episode: "Blue Bamboo" |
1995 | Another World | Madeline Thompson | Series regular |
1999 | Vivid | Susan | |
2000 | The Sopranos | Smoker | Episode: "House Arrest" |
2001 | Third Watch | Flynn | Episode: "Walking Wounded" |
2001–2012 | One Life to Live | Roxy Balsom | Series regular (2001-2004), Recurring (2004-2012) Nominated - Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (2004-2005) Nominated - Soap Opera Digest Award for Favorite Return (2003) |
2005 | Tinsel Town | Attorney | |
2005 | The Signs of the Cross | Mrs. Coyne | |
2007 | Mattie Fresno and the Holoflux Universe | Liz | |
2007 | The Black Donnellys | Claire | Episode: "The World Will Break Your Heart" |
2007 | Knock Knock | Sexy Librarian | |
2008 | Manhattanites | Marilyn Marsden | |
2011 | Hunting Season | Mrs. Klein | |
2012 | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit | Evelyn Higgins | Episode: "Father's Shadow" |
2013 | Unforgettable
|
Naomi McKinnon | Episode: "Line Up or Shut Up" |
2013 | American Hunger | Sydney Fisher | Short film |
2013–2015 | General Hospital | Delia Reid Ryan
|
Recurring role |
2013–2016 | Pride: The Series
|
Eleanor Brixton | Recurring role |
References
- ^ a b "Ilene Kristen 411". Soap Opera Digest. Archived from the original on 2014-02-03. Retrieved 2014-06-26.
- ^ "FLASHBACK: Ilene Kristen - 1977: The No. 1 villainess of TV soaps". Us Magazine. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
- SoapCentral. Retrieved 2014-06-26.
- ^ a b "Daytime Confidential : DC #308: Ilene Kristen Interview".
- ^ a b "Ilene Kristen shares colorful One Life to Live, Ryan's Hope memories | OLTL on Soap Central".
- ^ Jillian Bowe (2013-08-27). "Ilene Kristen Becomes 'Unforgettable'". Daytime Confidential. Archived from the original on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2014-06-26.
- ^ Luke Kerr (2014-01-21). "Ilene Kristen Checks Back Into General Hospital". Daytime Confidential. Archived from the original on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2014-06-26.
- ^ Anna Quindlen (1977-03-18). "Renoir Cinema Opens Without Illusions". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
- ISBN 9780292757684. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
- ^ "Jean Renoir Cinema—A Cinema Treasures Thread". Retrieved 2019-09-06.