It's almost impossible for me nOT to appreciate her, because every time I enter my house, I walk past her picture on the CONTACT poster hanging in my dining room.
I got it from a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS auction on Ebay - it cost me nearly a hundred bucks - plus another 50 to frame it. It's a rare poster, from when the show first played at the Mitzi Newhouse. It's two sided - one side has Deborah Yates and Boyd Gaines, and the other side has Karen with David McGillivray, who played the waiter she danced with. The side with Karen and David is autographed by the entire cast. The photos were obviously taken before the show opened. Karen and Deborah aren't in ther real costumes - Karen is in a blue dress and Deborah is in a yellow dress - but they are not THE blue and yellow dreses.
I often look for a Contact poster with Karen on it, but they are always the ones with Deborah and her damned yellow dress. I bet that poster of your's is a lovely conversation piece.
She's sort of known as the "Queen of Broadway Replacements" . . . Chorus Line, Crazy for You, original 42nd Street, etc., etc. She's a TRUE triple-threat:
I am one of the deprived souls who are not acquainted with her glory...however, that will soon change. I am seeing her in Leading Ladies in a couple of weeks.