Starting in Hollywood as a script reader, Karp became a producer, working on both plays and films. She is best known for producing 1981’s My Dinner With Andre, an offbeat exploration of life set at a dinner table.
“Beverly was one of the few who read it and believed that anybody but our relatives would come to see it,” said star Andre Gregory, who also wrote the script with co-star Wally Shawn. The low-budget flick was shot in an abandoned hotel in Virginia — in the winter. “Since we didn’t have the money to heat the hotel, she brought me a bit of cognac from time to time,” recalls a co-producer. The crew kept warm by wearing ski clothes; the actors just had to act warm, aided by the lights and long underwear. Karp died in New York June 10 from emphysema at 72.