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Karen Arthur
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Karen Arthur

Arthur has been a prolific director ever since she won the Los Angeles Critics Award for Most Promising Filmmaker with her motion picture debut, Legacy. In 1985, she won an Emmy for her direction of an episode of Cagney and Lacey. Among her more recent projects are the television movies Journey to the Heart, starring Cybill Shepherd; Labor of Love, starring Marcia Gay Harden, and two Hallmark Hall of Fame movies, Shadow of Doubt, starring Diane Ladd, and Looking for Lost Bird, starring Mercedes Ruehl. Arthur also directed the miniseries A Will of Their Own, starring Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Lea Thompson, Thomas Gibson and Eric McCormack, as well as Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark, an American Masterpiece Theatre presentation for PBS.

This is the seventh production Arthur has directed for Craig Anderson Productions. Prior collaborations include The Secret, starring Kirk Douglas; Bump in the Night, starring Christopher Reeve; The Staircase, starring William Peterson and Barbara Hershey, and the miniseries Dead By Sunset, starring Ken Olin, and True Women, featuring Angelina Jolie and Dana Delaney.

Arthur began her career as a dancer, and appeared in over 50 musical comedies in New York. She then moved to Los Angeles, where she appeared in a number of comedy and drama series for television. At the same time, she began directing plays for the stage including Genet's The Balcony and Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince.

In 1974, Arthur was selected to participate in the pioneer session of The American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women, where she directed the short film Sound of a Drunken Drummer. In 1975 she directed her first feature film, Legacy, which received the International Film Critics Award and the Joseph von Sternberg Award, along with awards for Best First Film and Best First Feature. Arthur's other feature film credits include The Mafu Cage and Lady Beware.

Among her other television credits are the miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream, Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story, Crossings, and Return to Eden. Her television movies include The Rape of Richard Beck, The Disappearance of Christina, Fall From Grace: The Jim and Tammy Bakker Story, starring Kevin Spacey and Bernadette Peters, and Bridge to Silence, which received a New York Film Festival Gold Medal.

Arthur resides in Malibu, California, with her husband, cinematographer Tom Neuwirth, with whom she often collaborates (and who served as director of photography on PASSION AND PREJUDICE).


Note: This profile was written in or before 2002.

Karen Arthur Facts

Birth NameKaren Jensen
OccupationDirector
BirthdayAugust 24, 1941 (82)
SignVirgo
BirthplaceOmaha, Nebraska, USA

Selected Filmography

Not available.