Today is the 78th birthday of the actress Carol Wayne. She guest starred on a lot of great TV shows of the 1960s. Her Hollywood story is a mix of highs and lows that ended too soon. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.
NAME: Carol Wayne
DATE OF BIRTH: 6-Sep-1942
PLACE OF BIRTH: Chicago, IL
DATE OF DEATH: 13-Jan-1985
PLACE OF DEATH: Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico
CAUSE OF DEATH: Accident – Drowning
Posed Naked for Playboy (Feb-1984)
BEST KNOWN FOR: Carol Marie Wayne was an American television and film actress. She made numerous appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson as the Matinee Lady in the Art Fern’s Tea Time Movie sketches.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Wayne began her show business career as a teenage figure skater in the Ice Capades along with her younger sister, Nina Wayne. The Wayne Sisters later became showgirls of the Folies Bergère at the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Carol followed Nina to Hollywood in the mid-1960s and the sisters began appearing in TV shows of the era.
Wayne did television guest shots on I Spy (as the title character in the episode “Trouble With Temple”), Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie (as dim-witted starlet “Bootsie Nightingale”), Love American Style, Emergency!, and The Fall Guy, and appeared in many sketches on The Red Skelton Show.
Wayne said she was “discovered” at a Hollywood party and auditioned for The Tonight Show after appearances as a Las Vegas chorine.
She gained her greatest fame for appearances (1967–1984) on The Tonight Show including 100-plus appearances (1971–1984) as the buxom Matinée Lady on The Tonight Show in Johnny Carson’s popular Art Fern’s Tea Time Movie sketches, which were filled with sexual double entendres. After her death, Carson kept the Art Fern character off the air for most of the next year. He eventually hired Danuta Wesley and later Teresa Ganzel to be his new Matinée Lady.
Wayne made appearances on several game shows including Mantrap and Hollywood Squares. She was a regular panelist on Celebrity Sweepstakes. She landed roles in several films, including Gunn, The Party (both directed by Blake Edwards), Scavenger Hunt, Savannah Smiles, and Surf II. Her final onscreen appearance came in the 1984 drama Heartbreakers.
In February 1984, Wayne appeared nude in a pictorial for Playboy magazine. That same year she filed for bankruptcy.
Wayne was married three times. She married her first husband Loreto “Larry” Cera on May 1, 1965; they divorced in June 1967. In 1969, Wayne married her second husband, rock-music photographer Barry Feinstein, with whom she had a son, Alex Feinstein (b. 1970). The couple divorced in 1974. A year later, in 1975, she married her third and final husband, television and film producer Burt Sugarman, who served as producer on Celebrity Sweepstakes. They divorced in 1980.
Wayne told Johnny Carson in an April 30, 1974, interview that she enjoyed gardening and growing bonsai trees.
In January 1985, Wayne and a companion, Edward Durston were vacationing at the Las Hadas Resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. After they had an argument, Wayne reportedly took a walk on the beach. Three days later a local fisherman found Wayne’s body in the shallow bay. An autopsy performed in Mexico revealed no signs of alcohol or other drugs in her body. Her death was ruled “accidental”.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Gunn | Ernestine | |
| 1968 | The Party | June Warren | |
| 1979 | Scavenger Hunt | Nurse | |
| 1980 | Gypsy Angels | Waitress | |
| 1982 | Savannah Smiles | Doreen | |
| 1984 | Surf II | Mrs. O’Finlay | Alternative title: Surf II: The End of the Trilogy |
| 1984 | Heartbreakers | Candy | |
| 1984 | E. Nick: A Legend in His Own Mind | Regine |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | The Man from U.N.C.L.E | Ginger LaVeer | Episode: “The Super-Colossal Affair” |
| 1966 | The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. | Shelia | Episode: “The Faustus Affair” |
| 1967 | I Spy | Temple | Episode: “The Trouble with Temple” |
| 1967 | Occasional Wife | Miss Orange Grove | Episode: “The New Secretary” |
| 1967 | I Dream of Jeannie | Bootsie Nightingale | Episode: “Here Comes Bootsie Nightingale” |
| 1969 | Bewitched | Bunny | Episode: “A Bunny for Tabitha” |
| 1970 | The Red Skelton Show | NBC Soundstage Tour Guide Chambermaid | Episodes: “The Magic Act” “The Private Detective” |
| 1970–1972 | Love, American Style | Various | 6 episodes |
| 1971 | Sarge | Receptionist | Episode: “Psst! Wanna Buy a Dirty Picture?” |
| 1971 | The Bold Ones: The Lawyers | Christie Mullins | Episode: “The Letter of the Law” |
| 1971–1984 | The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson | Art Fern’s Tea-Time Movie Lady[14] | Multiple episodes |
| 1972 | Mannix | Bobbi | Episode: “A Puzzle for One” |
| 1972 | Every Man Needs One | Nancy | Television movie |
| 1973 | The Girl with Something Extra | Mimi | Episode: “John & Sally & Fred & Linda” |
| 1974 | Medical Center | Blanche | Episode: “Adults Only” |
| 1974 | Emergency! | Renee, Miss October | Episode: “The Screenwriter” |
| 1974-1976 | Celebrity Sweepstakes | Herself (regular panelist) | Television game show |
| 1979 | Heaven on Earth | Television movie | |
| 1981 | The Big Black Pill | Allegra Farrenpour | Television movie |
| 1981 | The Fall Guy | Rose | Episodes: “The Meek Shall Inherit Rhonda” “The Japanese Connection” |
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