Transition to Television

Karen Kay Sharpe (1934-) is a former actress of film and television, appearing on screen consistently from 1952 through 1966. The attractive Texas-born actress studied ballet and dancing as a child and was a model for magazine covers in her teens. By eighteen, she was cast in a small role for The Sniper, produced by her future husband, Stanley Kramer. Director William Wellman then cast Sharpe in the airline disaster classic, The High and the Mighty, for which she garnered a Golden Globe Award as "New Star of the Year—Actress." She appeared in two "man-titled" films back-to-back, The Man With a Gun (1955) with Robert Mitchum and a B-movie the following year opposite William Campbell, in The Man In The Vault. Before these films, she had already established herself on television by appearing on Racket Squad, Lux Video Theatre, Playhouse 90, General Electric Theater, and The Millionaire, and more. Her only recurring role was in the television western, Johnny Ringo, for eighteen episodes (1959-60). She got noticed on such popular shows as 77 Sunset Strip, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, and The Wild Wild West. In between, she also was cast in the Jerry Lewis comedy, The Disorderly Orderly.

She is the third wife of producer/director Stanley Kramer. The two were married in 1966 with Sharpe soon leaving acting to devote full time to her family and serve as assistant to her husband in the film industry. After his death in 2001, she took her married name, Karen Kramer, as an executive producer for a number of video shorts and documentaries from 2005-2008.