Background
She was born Karen Orth-Pallavicini in New York City on October 13, 1945.
She was born Karen Orth-Pallavicini in New York City on October 13, 1945.
Akers graduated from Manhattanville College.
Her immigrant father, Heinnick Christian Orth-Pallavicini, was of Austrian and Swiss-Italian heritage. Her American-born mother, Mary Louise (née Adams), a chaplain, had Russian, Norwegian, and French forebears on one side of her family and Scotch-Irish ones on the other. Her younger sister, Nicole Orth-Pallavicini, is also an actress.
Another younger sister, Marie Orth-Pallavicini, is married to David Baker Cadman, a grandson of John Cadman, 1st Baron Cadman.
Akers first appeared on Broadway in the original production of Nine, a musical directed by Tommy Tune and based on the Federico Fellini film 8½, as Luisa Contini, the wife of promiscuous film director Guido Contini (played by Raúl Juliá). The show opened May 9, 1982, and had a successful run of 732 performances, closing February 4, 1984.
She was one of three actresses in the show nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, with the award eventually going to fellow cast member Liliane Montevecchi. In 1985 Karen appeared in such feature films as Woody Allen"s The Purple Rose of Cairo as a celluloid chanteuse, and in Heartburn (as the mistress of Jack Nicholson"s character).
She appeared on Broadway in Grand Hotel, a musical adaptation of the novel and film, scored by Robert Wright, George Forrest, and Maury Yeston.
In Grand Hotel Akers was reunited with Nine director Tommy Tune and Nine cast members Liliane Motevecchi and Kathi Moss. The show opened November 12, 1989, for a run of 1,018 performances, through April 19, 1992. Akers covered "Sooner or Later" in her 1991 album Unchained Melodies, a song written for Madonna by Stephen Sondheim the year before.
He was reportedly a member of the European nobility family Pallavicino who dropped his title when he came to America.
