Kathleen Norris Stark (born April 26, 1956), better known as Koo Stark, is an American photographer and actress, known for her relationship with Prince Andrew.
After a divorce in the 1960s, her mother remarried. Koo Stark attended the Hewitt School in New York and the Glendower Preparatory School in Kensington, London.
In 1975 she appeared in Las adolescentes (The Adolescents), opposite Anthony Andrews, and starred in an episode of Shades of Greene. Also that year she had an uncredited role as a bridesmaid in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The London Theatre Record posed the question "Why has a girl so obviously three-dimensional chosen a part so obviously two-dimensional?" She played Miss Scarlett in the 1991 series of Cluedo, succeeding Toyah Willcox and befriending Rula Lenska. ==Photographer== Stark has worked as a photographer since the 1980s, and may have been the first person to turn the tables on the pursuing paparazzi by taking photos of them.
It is the antithesis of digital, airbrushed, Photoshop-homogenised ‘beauty’." In August the exhibition was repeated in Manchester, to mark the opening of a new Leica store there. ==Personal life== Stark met Prince Andrew in February 1981, and they were close for some two years, before and after his active service in the Falklands War.
In October 1982 they took a holiday together on the island of Mustique.
Prince Andrew has told how in 1983 a photographic printer, Gene Nocon, invited Stark to take photographs of people taking photos of her, for his exhibition, Personal Points of View, planned for October.
However, in 1983, after 18 months of dating, they split up under pressure from the Queen.
developing her interests in photography to include reportage, portraits, landscapes, still life, and other work. The book, Contrasts was launched at Hamiltons Gallery, London, in September 1985, at an exhibition of the same name.
In 1988, she brought a successful libel action against The Mail on Sunday over an untrue story headed 'Koo dated Andy after she wed'.
In 1989, The Spectator reported that she had received £300,000 from one newspaper "for years of inaccurate persecution" and was also collecting money from others.
The London Theatre Record posed the question "Why has a girl so obviously three-dimensional chosen a part so obviously two-dimensional?" She played Miss Scarlett in the 1991 series of Cluedo, succeeding Toyah Willcox and befriending Rula Lenska. ==Photographer== Stark has worked as a photographer since the 1980s, and may have been the first person to turn the tables on the pursuing paparazzi by taking photos of them.
In 1994, the Gallery Bar at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane hosted an exhibition called 'The Stark Image', forty photographs by Stark, including several previously unpublished.
She has been a practising Buddhist since meeting the Dalai Lama. She was later engaged to Warren Walker, an American banker, but he cancelled their wedding before the birth of their daughter, Tatiana, in May 1997. In 2002, Stark was diagnosed with breast cancer and endured a double mastectomy and chemotherapy, causing her to lose her hair for a time. In another libel action in 2007, Stark won an apology and substantial damages from Zoo Weekly magazine, which had described her as a porn star.
In 1998, her work was featured at the Como Lario in Holbein Place, Belgravia.
In July 2001 she had an exhibition called 'Stark Images" at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, duplicated from June to July 2001 at Dimbola Lodge on the Isle of Wight.
She has been a practising Buddhist since meeting the Dalai Lama. She was later engaged to Warren Walker, an American banker, but he cancelled their wedding before the birth of their daughter, Tatiana, in May 1997. In 2002, Stark was diagnosed with breast cancer and endured a double mastectomy and chemotherapy, causing her to lose her hair for a time. In another libel action in 2007, Stark won an apology and substantial damages from Zoo Weekly magazine, which had described her as a porn star.
She has been a practising Buddhist since meeting the Dalai Lama. She was later engaged to Warren Walker, an American banker, but he cancelled their wedding before the birth of their daughter, Tatiana, in May 1997. In 2002, Stark was diagnosed with breast cancer and endured a double mastectomy and chemotherapy, causing her to lose her hair for a time. In another libel action in 2007, Stark won an apology and substantial damages from Zoo Weekly magazine, which had described her as a porn star.
She commented "I am relieved that my name has been cleared of this false, highly damaging and serious allegation which has been proved to be completely untrue." In 2011, The Daily Telegraph called her an early Kate Middleton prototype and suggested that if she had not appeared in the film Emily early in her career she might have gone on to become the Duchess of York. Stark continues to live in London and is a member of the Chelsea Arts Club.
A solo exhibition hosted by the Leica gallery in Mayfair in May 2017 was entitled Kintsugi, a Japanese word for a way of renovating things that have been broken.
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