Although my Carol Lynley book (it is NOT a bio, as some disappointed folks seemed to believe, but a career retrospective) focuses on her genre work, I do discuss her work in comedies, romances, melodramas, etc. One of her most praise-worthy roles was that of the ill-fated Mona Fermoyle who goes from nice Irish Catholic girl to a tango-dancing prostitute in Otto Preminger’s Golden Globe-winning, multi-million dollar epic The Cardinal (1963). It traced the rise of Steven Fermoyle (Tom Tryon) from parish priest in Boston ca. 1910s to Cardinal in the 1940s. When the runaway Mona is found she is about to give birth and her priest brother must decide to either save the mother or the baby. He chooses the later due to Catholic dogma, and the final scene of Mona being rolled to her death and letting out one final scream, “Steve!” is chilling.
