Acting

Karen X. Gaylord

She was born Karen Xandra Gaylord on January 4, 1921, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a working class family (she was also the oldest sibling out of a family that had four children; all of which were girls). Her father was employed as an engineer with the Northern Pacific Railway. Following her 1939 graduation from North Community High School she had intentions of going to college to study music and art however a school friend of her's noticed an announcement in the then published magazine, Movie Mirror, saying that the studios in California were accepting photographs with names and addresses in order to help recruit 'fresh' faces for films. Unknown, to Karen, her friend mailed in her picture and not long after she recieved a letter informing her that she had been selected to come to California for screen testing. Feeling this would be a good oppurtunity for herself, and the family, they all moved out to California and young Karen began floating around all of Tinsel Town's major studios doing several screen and wardrobe tests. In 1941, she made her film debut, uncredited, in The Chocolate Soldier with Nelson Eddy. Between 1941 and 1949, she appeared in approximatley 36 films and only recieved on screen billing once for her appearance in the 1944 Rita Hayworth feature Cover Girl.