Berlin-born actress Kaaren Verne (sometimes billed as Karen) was born
Ingeborg Catherine Marie Rose Klinkerfuss in 1918. Originally a stage
actress and member of the Berlin State Theatre, she and her first
husband, Arthur Young, fled their homeland in 1938. She began her
career in England as a model and eventually signed with 20th
Century-Fox for films. No movies came out of this agreement, however,
but her screen test interested Fox, making her debut with the drama
Ten Days in Paris (1940)
starring Rex Harrison.
Jumping on the popular foreign bandwagon during WWII along with other
European hopefuls, this highly attractive blonde turned in strong lead
and second lead roles throughout the early 1940s. An MGM contract led
to a couple of films
(Sky Murder (1940) and
The Wild Man of Borneo (1941)).
A freelance contract with Warner Bros. stabilized things a bit. The
Teutonic actress initially intended to "Americanize" her stage name to
the more acceptable Catherine Young, but her vehement anti-Nazi
sentiment made for more publicity and stronger audience identification,
so the name of Kaaren Verne quickly returned. She appeared frequently
as mysterious ladies in both propaganda films such as
Underground (1941) and whodunit
mysteries, keeping Walter Pidgeon's Nick
Carter and Basil Rathbone's Sherlock
Holmes on their toes. For the most part she remained in the "B" movie
realm.
Kaaren had a couple of fine chances for stardom. She shared a touching
scene with Robert Cummings in
the classic soaper Kings Row (1942) and
appeared opposite Humphrey Bogart as a
romantic interest in
Die ganze Nacht hindurch (1942),
a combination gangster/spy film. One of Bogie's lesser known movies,
the best thing it did for Kaaren was introduce her to one of her
co-stars Peter Lorre. Divorcing
first husband Arthur Young, by whom she had a son, Alastair, she
quickly married Lorre in 1945 and put her career on hold for a time.
The turbulent union was rather brief, however, lasting only five years
before separating in 1950 and finally divorcing two years later. During
the course of that marriage, she attempted suicide more than once. Upon
their divorce, she made herself available again for films but the wind
had already been kicked out of her career sails. Kaaren found some
sporadic TV work but they were minor and few and far between. Her looks
grew hard and coarse over time and she moved wisely into small, drab
character parts, usually as a world-weary matron. One of her last movie
roles was the minor part of the hausfrau and mother to
Gila Golan in the all-star epic picture
Das Narrenschiff (1965).
Kaaren, who had married a third time, died quite suddenly in her
Hollywood home during Christmas week in 1967, looking much older than
her 49 years. Her death is somewhat of a mystery. Some sources say she
committed suicide; others claim she died of a heart ailment. She was
buried at Calvary Cemetery in Minnesota and was survived by her third
husband, theatre and film critic/historian James Powers, and an adopted
daughter.
