| 
 Biography 
Marta Kristen was born Birgit  Annalisa  Rusanen,  on  February  26,
  1945,  to  a  Finnish  mother  and  a  German soldier who was killed
  towards the end of World War  II  in  Europe.  Marta  was  only  two
  months  old when she was left in an orphanage. In 1949, Prof. & Mrs.
  Harold Soderquist of Detroit, Michigan adopted her, and brought  her
  to  America; she was renamed Marta. In 1959 the family moved to L.A.
  and Marta attended Santa Monica High School for a  year;  she  later
  graduated  from  Hollywood  Professional  School.  Producer/Director
  James B. Harris discovered the pretty, petite aspiring  actress;  he
  arranged  for her to get an agent, and she was quickly booked for TV
  programs such as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and  "The  New  Loretta
  Young  Show."  In  1963,  Marta met a graduate student, and 6 months
  later they got married. Marta's career took  off,  she  made  a  big
  splash  as the mermaid Lorelei in _Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)_ (qv).
  But she would forever be remembered for her signature role  of  Judy
  Robinson  in  the  "Lost  in Space" TV Series. However, the show was
  not as great as expected. Marta later said  in  an  interview,  "The
  show  had so much promise. When it started to be silly, we all began
  to look at each other and say, 'We're in  an  episode  with  talking
  vegetables?'  Five  years of the Actors Studio, and I'm doing this?"
  Even worse, the show did not feature her prominently-- in  the  most
  popular   episode   "The   Sky   Pirate,"   in   which   the   great
  Finnish-descent actor Albert Salmi guest  starred,  Marta  had  only
  one  word  of  dialogue  (she gets to say "good-bye" to the pirate).
  Offscreen, Marta tried to find her  roots,  but  it  was  not  until
  1969,  pregnant  with  her  first  child and traveling alone through
  Europe looking for her long-lost relatives, that Marta was  able  to
  find  her  real mother in Finland; she also met her older sister for
  the first time, whom she didn't know about. Later that  year,  Marta
  returned  to  the  USA,  and  her  daughter  Laura  was  born. Marta
  concentrated  on  raising  her  daughter,  and  instead   of   doing
  television  or  films, she appeared in over 40 TV commercials, which
  required less time away from home. Marta and  her  husband  divorced
  in  1973.  In  1974, Marta met Kevin Kane, an attorney, and they got
  married (they are still together).  Marta  has  remained  moderately
  active  in  TV  and movies, even appearing in the big screen version
  of _Lost in Space (1998)_ (qv).  And,  she  is  still  finding  more
  family  members--  in  1997  Marta discovered that she had a younger
  brother in Australia, and another sister in Finland she didn't  know
  about.  And  she  puts  her  own  family  ahead of her career. Marta
  recently said in an interview, "Now I'm co-parenting  my  daughter's
  child  Lena.  I  used to do a lot of theater and traveled a lot. But
  those things are out of the picture for the next couple  of  years."
  However,   occasionally   Marta   will   attend  a  science  fiction
  convention, delighting her many fans-- Marta is still  our  favorite
  galactic space traveler.
  Biography courtesy of the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).
    |