Karen Kondazian is an award-winning author born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her debut novel The Whip, received five awards in 2013, including the USA News Best Book Award for Historical Fiction and the International Book Award for Best Western. She is also the author of the best-selling book, The Actors Encyclopedia of Casting Directors, with a foreword by Richard Dreyfuss.
Kondazian was a journalist and is an award winning theater actress who began her acting career at the age of eight, as one of the infamous children on Art Linkletter's, Children Say the Darnest Things. She completed her schooling at San Francisco State College, The University of Vienna and The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
Onstage, Kondazian has distinguished herself portraying the women of Tennessee Williams, winning the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance in The Rose Tattoo. After seeing her performance, Tennessee Williams and Kondazian became friends and he gave her carte blanche to produce any of his plays in his lifetime. She then starred opposite Ed Harris in Sweet Bird of Youth and also won the Los Angeles Ovation Award playing Maria Callas in The Master Class. She has also appeared as a series regular lead in CBS's Shannon and guest starred in over 50 television shows and films - including, starring opposite James Franco in TNT's James Dean, and playing Kate Holliday in the award-winning anthology series, Showdown at O.K. Corral.
Kondazian is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio, a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and Women in Film. She is presently working on her second novel, Looking for Jack Kerouac.
