Carol White

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Carol White
Born	Carole Joan White 1 April 1943(1943-04-01) London, England, UK
Died	16 September 1991 (aged 48) Miami, Florida, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1949–1990

Carol White (1 April 1943 – 16 September 1991) was a British actress.

She achieved notability for her performances in the television play Cathy Come Home (1966) and the film Poor Cow (1967), but alcoholism and drug abuse damaged her career, and from the early 1970s she worked infrequently.

Life and career

Early life

Born in Hammersmith, London, the daughter of a scrap merchant's daughter, White attended the Corona Stage Academy.

Career

She played minor roles in films from 1949 until the late 1950s, when she began to play more substantial supporting roles in films such as Carry on Teacher (1959) and Never Let Go (1960) in which she played the girlfriend of Peter Sellers.

She continued working regularly and drew attention for her performances in the television version of Nell Dunn's Up the Junction (1965), and she followed this success with roles in Cathy Come Home (1966) and the film Poor Cow (1967).

She starred opposite Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm in the film adaptation of Bernard Malamud's The Fixer (1968) and then travelled to Hollywood in 1968 to make Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1969). She appeared in Dulcima in 1971, but her career went into decline soon after, largely as a result of personal problems including drug and alcohol abuse.

After living in Hollywood for several years, White returned to London to star in Nell Dunn's play Steaming at the West End's Comedy Theatre. Despite receiving excellent reviews, she often was late, missed performances, and finally was sacked. In 1981, her biography, Carol Comes Home, by Clifford Thurlow, was published. White received publicity for the play and the biography, but she was not able to renew her career. She returned to the United States, where she remained for the rest of her life.

Personal life

During the late 1960s, White was considered one of the most promising actresses in British cinema. Her problems with alcoholism and substance abuse, as well as unhappy relationships with male stars such as Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra and Oliver Reed, hindered her career.

White died in 1991 in Florida, at the age of 48. The cause of her death is disputed, with some sources claiming she took a drug overdose and others suggesting she succumbed to liver disease.^[1] She had two sons from her first marriage.

A television film of her life, The Battersea Bardot, was shown in 1994 with Wendy Morgan as White.

References

External links

• Carol White at the Internet Movie Database
• Carol White at Find a Grave

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