Helena Carroll may have been born in Scotland, but she was actually Irish.
Irish Thesp Helena Carroll Dies at 84
Michelle Salemi, Variety
Helena Carroll, an Irish stage, television and film actress died at her home in Los Angeles on March 31. She was 84.
Carroll was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. She moved to the United States in the 1950s, touring and performing on Broadway.
Carroll was the youngest of three daughters of Irish dramatist Paul Vincent Carroll and dress designer Helena Reilly. She had split her stage work between Dublin, London and New York and was co-founded the Irish Players acting group in Gotham.
She appeared on Broadway in “Oliver!,” “Pickwick,” “Little Moon of Alban,” “Something Different,” “Design for Living,” “Waiting in the Wings” starring Lauren Bacall and both the Broadway and Los Angeles revivals of “Private Lives” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Carroll also appeared in films such as John Huston’s “The Dead,” “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” “The Jerk,” “The Mambo Kings,” “Rocky” and “Love Affair.” She also worked on numerous television shows and soaps including “General Hospital,” “Colombo” and “Murder She Wrote.”
Carroll’s last plays were “The Queen of Lenai” in Los Angeles in 2005 and “Philadelphia Here I Come” in Gotham in 2006.
R.I.P. Helena Carroll
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R.I.P. Helena Carroll
Helena Carroll, Broadway and Film Actress, Dies at 84
By Robert Simonson
11 Apr 2013 playbill.com
Helena Carroll, a Scottish-born actress who did stage, film and television work in the United States, died on March 31 in Marina del Rey, CA. The cause was heart failure. She was 84.
Helena Winifred Carroll was born on Nov. 13, 1928, in Glasgow, and was raised there and in Ireland. The daughter of playwright Paul Vincent Carroll, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before coming to the United States. Following that move, she began appearing regularly on stages in New York, London and Dublin.
She made her Broadway debut in the hit 1956 Terence Rattigan drama Separate Tables. Following the Dublin-set Julie Harris vehicle Little Moon of Alban in 1960, she won a role as the undertaker's wife, Mrs. Sowerberry, in the smash musical Oliver! Another Dickens-inspired musical, Pickwick, followed, but was not as successful.
Other Broadway credits included the short-lived 1970 musical Georgy, based on the film "Georgy Girl"; the play Borstal Boy, based on the memoir by Brendan Behan; 1980s revivals of Noel Coward's Private Lives and Design for Living; and, in her final Broadway appearance, Coward's latter-day play Waiting in the Wings.
With Dermot McNamara, Ms. Carroll founded in the '50s the Irish Players, a New York repertory company that presented the work of Irish playwrights, including Synge, Donagh MacDonagh and Ms. Carroll's father. A 2005 Irish Rep revival of Philadelphia, Here I Come! won Ms. Carroll a Lucille Lortel Award nomination.
On film, she had roles in "The Jerk," "Ghost Story," John Huston's film of James Joyce's "The Dead" (as Aunt Kate), "The Mambo Kings" and "Rocky V."
She left no immediate survivors.
By Robert Simonson
11 Apr 2013 playbill.com
Helena Carroll, a Scottish-born actress who did stage, film and television work in the United States, died on March 31 in Marina del Rey, CA. The cause was heart failure. She was 84.
Helena Winifred Carroll was born on Nov. 13, 1928, in Glasgow, and was raised there and in Ireland. The daughter of playwright Paul Vincent Carroll, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before coming to the United States. Following that move, she began appearing regularly on stages in New York, London and Dublin.
She made her Broadway debut in the hit 1956 Terence Rattigan drama Separate Tables. Following the Dublin-set Julie Harris vehicle Little Moon of Alban in 1960, she won a role as the undertaker's wife, Mrs. Sowerberry, in the smash musical Oliver! Another Dickens-inspired musical, Pickwick, followed, but was not as successful.
Other Broadway credits included the short-lived 1970 musical Georgy, based on the film "Georgy Girl"; the play Borstal Boy, based on the memoir by Brendan Behan; 1980s revivals of Noel Coward's Private Lives and Design for Living; and, in her final Broadway appearance, Coward's latter-day play Waiting in the Wings.
With Dermot McNamara, Ms. Carroll founded in the '50s the Irish Players, a New York repertory company that presented the work of Irish playwrights, including Synge, Donagh MacDonagh and Ms. Carroll's father. A 2005 Irish Rep revival of Philadelphia, Here I Come! won Ms. Carroll a Lucille Lortel Award nomination.
On film, she had roles in "The Jerk," "Ghost Story," John Huston's film of James Joyce's "The Dead" (as Aunt Kate), "The Mambo Kings" and "Rocky V."
She left no immediate survivors.