Karen Kay Sharpe was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1934. According to the federal census of 1940, her parents, Howard and Dorothy Sharp (spelled with no "e") were both natives of Indiana. That census also documents that in 1940, the family continued to reside in San Antonio and her father worked then as a sales manager for a local electric company.
Sharpe appeared in many other television series in the 1950s and early 1960s, including CBS's Racket Squad, Lux Video Theatre, Playhouse 90, General Electric Theater, The West Point Story, The Millionaire (in the lead role in "The Anitra Dellano Story"), Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Perry Mason (the title character in the 1958 episode "The Case of the Hesitant Hostess"), The Smothers Brothers Show, and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
In 1952, at the age of 18, Sharpe appeared in Stanley Kramer's production of The Sniper, directed by Edward Dmytryk. She spoke three lines in the film while sitting on a drugstore stool and did not personally meet Kramer at that time. That same year, she was cast uncredited as the younger sister of Janice Rule in the film Holiday for Sinners, opposite william Campbell. In 1953, she appeared as Lucy Colfax in the John Payne-Jan Sterling film, The Vanquished.
Sharpe was cast in several syndicated television series, too, including The Range Rider, Death Valley Days, and the American Civil War drama The Gray Ghost. She appeared on Studio 57, when it was broadcast in 1954 on the former DuMont Television Network. In 1955, she played the role of Clara Bryant Ford in the television film A Story About Henry Ford, based on the automobile mogul, who was portrayed by Arthur Franz. That same year, she played Martha Custis Washington in the television film The Courtship of George Washington and Martha Custis, with Marshall Thompson, nine years Sharpe's senior, cast as Washington.
In 1959, Modern Screen magazine gave Sharpe its Golden Key Award, designating her as "one of the most promising young actresses in show Business."
Later in 1961, seven years after The High and the Mighty, Sharpe was reunited with John Smith in his NBC Western series, Laramie. She portrayed Madge Barrington, the daughter of Colonel John Barrington, played by George Macready, whose character was presumably modeled after John Chivington of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre in Colorado. In the storyline, Barrington escapes while facing a court martial at Fort Laramie for his subsequent role in the Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota in 1890. The episode reveals that Slim Sherman was present at Wounded Knee and testified against Barrington. Madge takes Slim hostage and presents papers that she contends justify her father's harsh policies against the Indians. Slim manages to escape, but is trapped by the Sioux and must negotiate with the Indians to escape massacre.
In 1957, Sharpe married actor Chester Marshall, Jr. In 1961, Sharpe sued for divorce a second time, following an earlier suit and subsequent reconciliation. Marshall asked for alimony when their divorce case was heard in 1962. The divorce was granted on September 18, 1962, with Marshall's request for alimony having been dropped.
Sharpe's last roles on a regular series were in two episodes of The Wild Wild West. She appeared in Jerry Lewis's 1964 film The Disorderly Orderly, during which time she met Stanley Kramer, who was also directing Ship of Fools on the lot of Paramount Studios.
Kramer and Sharpe married on September 1, 1966, in Beverly Hills, California. She later stopped acting to devote full time to her family, including the couple's two children, and to serve as assistant to her husband in the film industry.
When Sharpe's father died, she inherited his businesses — aluminum siding, air conditioning, and moving and storage operations — and left acting to run them. Four years later, in 1965, she sold the Business for a profit and returned to acting.
